


4,879 Miles Be Damned

by goodgirlwhoshopeful



Category: Our Girl
Genre: Angst, BBC, BBC drama - Freeform, Captain Dawsey, F/M, War, and I miss Dawsey, because Series 2 was such a tease
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirlwhoshopeful/pseuds/goodgirlwhoshopeful
Summary: Lance Corporal Molly James-Dawes is on her third tour of Afghanistan when suddenly, it becomes unlike any of her other tours.Faced with a new kind of trauma and without Two Section – her adopted family – to help her through... she begins to panic, feeling the Molly she had once been fading fast. Then, comms from Kenya, where a certain Captain is based, sets her world on fire... and, most surprisingly, her soul back on track.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I know I know you all hate me... but this came to me when I was watching Series 2 of Our Girl and realising how shit it was without lovely, loveable Molly... and obviously more of Cpt. James. I personally lost all my shit at the tiny mentions of Molly in conversations the new S2 characters had with Cpt. James so I had to write about it. We deserve to have seem of the moments the BBC have denied us.
> 
> MAJOR SPOILERS FROM POST SERIES 1 AND 2 IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT – (but then I do doubt you'd be reading this if you haven't...)
> 
> Rated for later distressing themes.
> 
> Any fellow Captain Dawsey shippers, please come and find me on my tumblr, goodgirlwhoshopeful, because it's pretty lonely. Our Girl shippers seem to have gone completely AWOL despite all the lovely fics on here from when Series 1 was around... I hope y'all come back.
> 
> I'm at university so I can't promise how regularly I can post to this but if reaction is strong it might spur me a little...
> 
> Love and hugs.
> 
> X

Lance Corporal Molly James-Dawes had known many things for certain as she began her third tour: one, that she was more content in life than she had ever been; two, that she good at her job… and three, that she was lucky to be married to a man she could call her best friend.

What she hadn’t realised until today was quite how she and her husband’s connection had irreversibly changed in the weeks since they parted. Unforeseen circumstances left her trembling in her bunk in the woman’s quarters at Camp Shorabak, (the new name given to Camp Bastion after it was handed over to the Afghan Army), tears barely remaining at bay as she attempted to converse with him as though she wasn’t beginning to fall apart.

“I miss you,” she whispered down her satellite phone, such contact allowed in Afghan now that The British Army were no longer on the front line, simply based in medical and support roles instead. She is eternally grateful for it on days like today, when she’d seen children blinded by gas and girls with horrific injuries by men four times their age. Being able to hear the voice of her one support system in the world… was something that no army could put a price on, especially when he too was in a place of threat.

She’d done the maths over and over; there was no less than 4,879 miles between herself and her only love, her old boss… her best friend, Captain Charles James, or Charlie as she had grown to know him. In her nightmares though, the phone call came that every soldier’s loved one grew to dread, only she was not in the comforts of home like the other Army wives, but on tour too. In the pitch of the Afghan night, she would find herself running, breathless and panic-stricken, lungs seemingly painfully filled with grit and sand, attempting to chase down the 4,879 miles that stretched out between herself and Charlie. Her soul screams out for him, hearing the phantom chokes and wails of his agony, sounds she knew came from real memories from her first tour, when she had pressed her fist in his abdomen to keep him from bleeding out beneath her… All this torment, only to wake to find it was all a cruel warped trick of the mind.  
Staring at the canvas ceiling of her quarters, she would have a daily experience of being unable to draw air into her lungs, drenched in her body’s own sweat, despite the number of times she would repeat to herself that it wasn’t real. Charles was in Africa. Charles was providing aid, not fighting. He was good at his job. Charles was alive. Charles was safe.

“Ditto, Dawsey,” came his reply, bringing her back to the present with their catchphrase, that had long been theirs alone since she told him off for using it on their first tour of Afghan. She’d been nothing but an over-eager gobshite of a private under his charge back then, but the memory of that day, when they had finally admitted their hesitant forbidden feelings for one another, bounced around her nut, even after all this time.    
It had been like any other day in Afghan… except it hadn’t been at all.  
  
The day before, the convoy had come across an object in the middle of the road and of course, as their CO, it had been Charles who had taken the dangerous role of approaching it for inspection. As the medic, Molly had been told to wait out for his confirmation before moving, holding her rifle up to keep an eye on him through the eyepiece… but of course she had disobeyed. By that point, she had been head over heels in love with the Boss. They had shared very few moments alone and hadn’t even had the time much to even acknowledge them… but somehow they already both knew that their connection was irreversible.  
  
Playing back the tiny, hesitant moments they had shared over and over in the dead of night – the trace of his thumb over her knuckles and her fingers as he held her wrist, staring into her eyes in the seclusion of her tent; his pinching of her Coco Pops and his wink when they sang that ridiculous bloody duet on music night – she would wonder if it could ever be possible that the Boss too returned such feelings. After all, he was handsome as fuck, posh as anything and cultured… where she was cockney, mouthy and rough around the edges as well as right through the middle!  
  
Then, just she had had a slither of hope that love could overcome such obstacles, the boys had put her in the shit, spreading rumours about her and her long-term fellow private friend Smurf being an item because she had gone to his hometown of Newport while they were on R&R back in England together. That had been all it was, of course, between her and Smurf. She hadn’t had relations with him since her first week of Basic, when they’d met and got drunk and gone at it behind the Indian take away… but it appeared that the Boss had not seen things that way.  
  
His sudden stoney silence hurt, and it was most likely meant to punish her… but it indirectly also gave her some comfort… because there was only one reason men got a sulk on at the mention of other men, well she knew, and that was jealousy.

Therefore, there had been no way she could let the Boss walk out to his potential death without knowing for sure, every step he took away from her taunting her with images of his being blown into the air, so she had moved forward and taken cautious steps toward the suspicious road block, which could well blow them both to smithereens, because she knew she had to tell him, in case it did.

 _“Have you got a death wish?!” he’d demanded._  
  
_“Maybe,” she’d said, though she managed not to add, ‘if it means I save you’._  
  
_“Yeah, well, it’s nice to have some quali’y time togeva’,” she’d added, knowing that her platoon where out of earshot in the convoy, wondering what on earth she was doing._  
  
_“Is that why you’re risking your neck?” he’d asked harshly, carrying on forward while cautiously listening out of IED’s._  
  
_No, she wanted to say. No – I’m risking it for you._  
  
_Keeping one eye through the viewfinder on her weapon, she trained the other on the back of his head, barely managing the words. “Nothin’ happened with Smurf – but at least now I know.”_  
  
_“Know what?”_  
  
_“Well, I never thought you’d look at someone like me. I thought you were out of my league.”_  
  
_He’d turned on his heel and paused, though not quite been able to look at her. “What you trying to say, Dawes?”_  
  
_That had made her nervous – more so, strangely, than being so close to what could have easily been the end of her life. Somehow though, she’d held her ground and not let his tone deter her. “I’m jus’ sayin’…” Sometimes in life, all there was left was risk. “I’m fond of you, sir.”_  
  
_He had turned back and it was all she could do to focus on the curls that peeped out from beneath his helmet against the back of his tanned neck. “And I wanted to tell you in case we get to that sheet and someone detonates it and we’re blown to smithereens.”_  
  
_“Well, let’s continue this conversation when we’re back at Brize Norton, shall we?”_  
  
_“Love’s stronger than army regulations…” she’d tried softly, but she had known it was a long shot. If there was one thing Captain James was, it was a stickler for the rules._  
  
_“Nothing is stronger than army regulations!”_  
  
_The words had been harsh, as he’d no doubt intended them to be. The Boss had always been good at isolating his feelings from the task in hand. (‘Do. Not. Get. In-fucking-volved!’, as he always liked to scold her in the beginning.)_  
  
_She’d felt it then, as they moved but a foot or two from the sheet: the impending sense that that may have been the end… and it wasn’t enough. What they had, the impasse they had reached… it wasn’t enough! Not when the admission of actual, real love felt so close! It couldn’t end there…_  
  
_So, with tears in her throat, she found herself saying words aloud that, in hindsight, sounded so despite that they made her grimace… but war was a context in and of its own._  
  
_“Do you love me?”_

He never got chance to answer, as Sahal, their moody Afghan Army Captain ally, had reached out for him, injured and bleeding beneath the sheet. His revelations about being beaten by the Taliban were followed by the dreadful news that they had done so… because he had refused to murder Molly.  
  
As the news sunk in straight from the horse’s mouth, no one else had been in the hospital room but the three of them. The Boss’ eyes had shone with an unspoken weakness and vulnerability she had never once seen from him before, his jaw slack and his throat bobbing with emotion, the whites his eyes shining with unshed tears.  
  
Breaking almost every rule, he’d taken her face into his hands, cradling her and smoothing his thumbs over her cheeks to catch her own as they fell. At the time, she remembered wanting to physically scream, to panic and run, the same way she had felt on her very first disaster of a patrol, when she’d cowered from bullets and heaved for air.

So no, it hadn’t in fact been an ordinary day. The context was often forgotten, as the outcome seemed so normal, after that. Once she knew he knew… it was as though her heart no longer cared or recalled the meaning of caution. The next day she had been eying him from where Two Section had been downing their scoff, unable to keep her focus on her conversation with Corporal Kinders. Charlie, then known to her simply as Bossman, had been gazing at her fifteen foot away, his hands on his hips in his usual authoritative stance, so she had given in and found an excuse to go over to him. His eyes seemed to call for her even from such a distance, wearing his trademark smirk, so she’d excused herself and marched over, thankfully far out of earshot of the rest of her Section as the words, _“I don’t know how I keep my hands off you,”_ seemed to slip from her mouth without hindrance nor hesitation.  
  
He’d grinned and dropped his head back a little as he laughed. Secretly, she was thrilled that she managed to make him laugh. His jaw had dropped and his tongue had popped into the inside of his cheek as he seemed to debate what to say. His eyes met hers and she could see the unsaid confessions lingering in his dark brown eyes… He had no idea, but her heart was pounding. _“Ditto.”_  
  
_“Ditto?!” she’d cried. “Ditto! I was expecting somethin’ a li’le more romantic than bleedin' ‘ditto’!”_

Despite the fact this marked the beginning of their secret code… it wasn’t in fact her favourite memory.  
  
She had several that played back on days like today – many more since marrying the bloody man, of course – but there was something about the fragility of those first few weeks, before things were known and out in the open, that left her weak at the knees with an incompatible sense of adoration for him: her kind, gentle commanding officer who took off his stern mask of control… just for her.  
  
He had first shown her such gentle, surprisingly soft hidden parts of himself the day she was to go home from Afghan on R&R for the first time. He had sent her off with one request which personified him to a T – to buy him coffee capsules from a ponsey shop on Regent Street for his coffee machine, of all things! She had been in her civvies – a vest and short shorts – and from what she could remember, she had felt incredibly self conscious as her Boss, whom she had secretly lusted after only deep within her imagination by that point, had knocked on the nylon of the quarters. She could still remember how his eyes had been all warm and smiling in their usual confidence… but with something else lingering in them. Some sort of promise.  
  
He’d taken her hand in his and begun to carefully scribe the name of the coffee he wanted on the skin of her forearm… only to not let go when he should have.

 _“Go and buy me some ‘Rosebaya’ coffee capsules…” he had instructed softly as he knelt on one knee beside her bunk, smoothing the marker pen along her skin in his elegant hand. “…and I’ll adore you…for always.”_  
  
His eyes had caught hers upon this compliment and, of course, she’d risen to the bait.  
  
“Always, _Sir?”_  
  
Just like that, he’d let the soft chuckle on his lips die away and left his hand in hers, the hot pad of his thumb ghosting along her own upward until he reached the boney texture of her knuckles, as though touching her any less delicately would break whatever fragile tension hung between them. She’d struggled to breathe, as this had been the first time he had ever showed her explicit interest beyond their professional relationship.  
  
His eyes had never left her face, as though he had already known this would happen and made up his mind. He was always so sure, her Bossman… her Charlie. He always knew what to say.  
  
_“Come back to me,”_ he’d murmured then, as he had done many a time since, as though suddenly their separation as she went home to England was more dangerous than her being in an active war zone.  
  
_“I will… Don’t worry,”_ is all she can say then – just as it was all she could say now. What else was there? After all, it was all luck, as he always liked to remind her. Luck…flook… _chance_.

They’d been interrupted after that and he had leapt back from their interlinked fingers as though she had burned him, clearing his throat like the most quintessential Rupert before marching off for whatever duty he was needed for. Then, it had left her confused, but now, she appreciated the sheer magnitude of this memory.  
Charles James was not at all one for letting rules slide, not even for one moment… So, the mere fact such a fragile moment of intimacy was allowed to take seed in such a volatile, frightening place… Well, it was quite something.  
  
“What’s got you so quiet, soldier?” came Charlie’s enquiry in her ear, waking her from her consuming reverie. She only realised then that there are tears down her cheeks, silent but heavy, making her lips taste of salt. “It’s not like my Molls to be so quiet.”  
  
“Jus’ thinkin’,” she mumbles pathetically, unsure how to even begin her explanation. I’m in big trouble, Bossman… Trouble that will mess up the careers of both of us.  
“Dawsey? Thinking?! Oh dear, time to call the court marshals!”  
  
His joke falls on deaf ears, as the tension in her frame is too much to be overwritten. She knows he can tell, as he falls equally quiet for a long moment. She takes the opportunity to listen to his breathing, deep and steady in her ear. If she closes her eyes, she can just about picture his exact stance: sat in his isolated CO’s quarters at his makeshift desk looking at the photograph of their little makeshift family: just the two of them and his little boy, Sam, whom she had grown to love like he was her own.  
  
The key here was like – he isn’t her own, so it was always much easier to enjoy his company. She doesn’t do kids; a life in her family’s crowded flat in Newham, filled to the brim with her five siblings, had long taught her that! That and Sam was ten years old! He was hardly a baby… No, she certainly didn’t do babies.  
Oh, what was she going to do…  
  
“Molls… Please. What is it? _Please_. Talk to me.”  
  
She closes her eyes as more tears fell, cursing his ability to speak with such a tender softness. He was supposed to be an Army superior, for crying out loud! How was it possible he could be both so bloody stern while also so bloody caring?!  
  
Wiping her eyes fiercely, she felt the need to hurry lighting adrenaline in her blood – irrationally convinced that someone could overhear her conversation any moment now… despite the fact she is sat on top of the shitter while everyone else slept, just as she used to do in the days of her first tour.  
  
_“Molly?”  
_  
His soft, near whisper of a prompt was making her emotions worse, as she could picture his big brown eyes, full to the brim with empathy and a tortured conscience, pleading with her to open up. She clenched her fists in her lap as her hands began to shake, the undeniable tide of panic and fear rising up her throat and rendering her speechless.  
  
_You can’t tell him. You just can’t._  
  
“Did you really love me then?” she questioned suddenly, pushing back what she really had to say, unable to stop playing back that day on the dirt track. They had been approaching what could have easily been an explosive that would end their lives…but they had been together…so, somehow, she hadn’t felt nearly as scared as she did right now. “That day, when I badgered you up to that bloody sheet despite the fact we could have easily got ourselves blown up – “ Trying to ignore the way her breathing was uneven in her hysteria, she wiped her nose with West Ham sleeve. She thinks of his handsome face, all deep brown curls, heavy set brows and angular, tanned face from his last humanitarian mission, and it’s enough to crumble the last of her resolve. God in bleedin’ hell fire, she missed him. She wasn’t used to love like this, all consuming and almost…humid in its intensity, because up until Charles, she had never really been loved properly – romantically anyway. She knows that now. All those she’d been with prior to the miracle Captain James had been nothing more than quick, meaningless, less than satisfying shags. She is usually much better at burying all this until it was time to go home. After all, she had learnt from the best.  
  
Today though, she knows she has no hope of getting her emotions in order… and she knows precisely why.  
  
“Did you _really?”_ Her words crack and she knew she was a mess, but was without hope of consolation now… _not without Charlie._  
  
“Oh, Molly!” His tone is enough to halt her breathing. “You _know_ I bloody did,” he whispered, while she pretended momentarily that it didn’t make her tears worse.  
  
“God, I’ve loved you since that first day – remember? When you walked out for the Section photograph with your ridiculous big mouth, giggling like a schoolgirl over ‘cockwombles’ and I was an utter wanker for the rest of the week, making misogynistic remarks to kick you down a notch…when really it was because I was instantly put out by those cheeky eyes of yours… I thought you _knew_ that!” He was always so quick to feed her such flowery words, despite the fact he knew she had a real struggle believing them.  
  
“Alright, alright, I was just a–askin’ if you laved me – no need to – ” she attempts to rebuke croakily, though half-heartedly, her smile brittle and wobbly.  
There’s quiet between them again and she can hear the tussle in her ear as he moved about. “What is it, Dawsey?” he tries again, her military nickname feeling wrong on his tongue when they no longer worked together. Usually, she let him say it, but today, it brought back too much… Too much that she felt may be about to slip through her fingers.  
  
“Please don’t,” she begged, trying to breathe. Even though she was out in the open air, the absolutely massive expanse of the Afghan sky stretched out over her, she suddenly felt as though she was surrounded by walls the were closing in. “That bloody name reminds me of them days when I was…”  
  
“When you were what?” he prompts, forever eager to understand.  
  
“Nofin’ to you.”  
  
Such words were a confession in and of themselves, as she was pretty sure she had never actually said them aloud to him before, never voicing the way that she had felt so inferior and insignificant in the shadow of one of the army’s ‘finest young Officers’.  
  
“Never!” He sounded outraged and she instantly felt herself cringe. Why couldn’t she just be the women a man like that needed her to be?! What kind of a Captain’s wife was she? Forever disappointing him… “Molly, Jesus! You were never nothing!” She could practically see the trademark frown that made a deep ’T’ furrow on his brow. “Not for one moment! Where the fuck is this coming from?! Besides – it’s no different than you still calling me Bossman all the bloody time!”  
  
She would have laughed and scoffed and made a half-hearted self deprecating comment, had she been herself… but today, her heart doesn't even leap at such a romantic confession… but seemed to weep all the more for it.  
  
There was over four thousand miles between them… and it felt like eternity.  
  
She bit back a sound of panic and burrowed her face into her forearm in the hope she could physically push the sound back. _“Charlie…”_ His name was a whimper from her lips, fragmented and almost childlike.  
  
He suddenly sighs, evidently hearing her near-silent distress. “Oh _Molly!_  Calm down and tell me. Is everyone treating you alright over there?”  
  
The watery, teary smile she wore could be seen by no one, but ever since she had gotten sweet on him three years ago, she had found herself unable to control her reactions around him. His sweet, husbandly concern made such an expression automatic. Until, of course, she remembered why she was crying… and then it seemed impossible for any form of happiness to remain.  
  
Things were not okay. They hadn't been throughout this tour… It may only be a four month stint to get through, but it felt like an for-bleedin’-ever. She was away from her Section – no longer allowed to work with them now that the CO in charge of them was her husband – but, more than that, she was away from her family. Two Section, all the lads; Brains, Fingers, Mansfield…Charlie… they were her family – (not that she could ever tell mum or dad that!).  
  
“Yeah…” she lied, trailing until she realised that she had promised herself after their grey, uneven beginnings to never lie to him, so she added a meek: “Mostly.”  
  
“Mostly?!” he echoed. Instantly, she felt the tension in him, as though feeling it telepathically. “Sweetheart, what on earth does that mean?”  
  
“It don’t gotta mean nothin’, Charles – was just sayin’! You know how boys can be when there’s a new woman about.”  
  
Well did Charles know such things. Lords knew he himself had played a part in such grimace-worthy assumptions based on gender in the not too distant past, calling Molly their ‘token Doris’ in front of the whole section when she had first arrived and making comments about her needing to change from her Stilettos. In the army, men answered to men who had earned their respect… and women had to work all the harder for it.  
  
It was as it was, though that did not make it right, and it was through loving Molly that Charles was able to realise the clear prejudice that existed within the ‘bad apples’ in the armed forces, whom sneered and teased and sexualised their female colleagues and all in the name of normality. The very idea that such a thing was happening to his Molly… Well, it left his twitching for his weapon.  
  
Charlie could always tell when Molly was avoiding the truth… but today she remembered the fact a moment too late… For a start, she never called him Charles.  
“Yes,” he replied, his voice no longer soft. “I do.” She could tell by the way he now spoke that he was pacing. “I do, which is why your waterworks are ever so slightly terrifying me. What’s happened?”  
  
“Naffink,” she denied – though far, far too quickly. _Shit,_ she thought. _Now I’m done for._ “No, _naffink_!”  
  
“Please don’t hide things from me, Molly,” he whispered desperately, his tone quiet and soft but with a hint of the stern manner needed when one was a Captain. She felt the urge to confess all to him instantly, to tell him all that kept her up at night… all that very nearly had her running to him every single day now.  
“I’m not lyin’,” she managed back, though barely.  
  
“God _damn_ it, Molly, I know when you’re holding out on me!” His tone lost it’s patience and suddenly he sounded like the weary Bossman she remembered all over again.  
  
She was shaking now, because it all came back; her inability to open up, her first tour as a mentor where she’d been wracked by horrendous PTSD from her previous and very first tour in the army and had no friends to turn to; all that time ago that she lead on poor, sweet Smurf instead of being honest, instead of telling him straight away that she could never love him… not when she loved The Boss. The stress of the latter got to him, ultimately leading to his erratic behaviour on the battlefield…then his death.  
  
There was no one to blame but the two of them for that. Her and The Bossman, they were the two people he confessed to loving the most in the whole world… and they therefore broke his heart… There was nothing else to blame but them. Apart from the bleed in his head, perhaps.

 _‘Look, Molly.” His Welsh accent was always so bloody friendly. “I’m not stupid! I know you said you didn’t want to go out with anyone from the platoon – “_  
_“ – No, Smurf! I don’t want to go out with you!”_

 _“Dawes._ ” He was trying different tactics now, dragging her from her guilt fuelled flashbacks and almost making her smile as he was putting on his sternest ‘Captain James’ voice and adopting the name the Army still often used for her… despite the fact her name had not been Dawes for many months now.  
  
Meekly, she shook her head and stared into the darkness, feeling as though her mind was truly going round and round in circles.  
  
“ _‘ow_ can you love me after what I did?”  
  
She was changing the subject, but she had to know. It had been a question that had gnawed at her for days on end at first, in the days after Smurf collapsed to the ground at the centre of the West Ham pitch and never got back up.  
  
“Did _what_? Molly, my love, I don't – “  
  
She could practically see her husband shaking his head as she heard him heavy gasp and sigh down the phone, becoming utterly frustrated that he couldn’t take her by her shoulders and shake her, probably. She felt shame rolling from her in waves into the quiet, peaceful stillness of the night air and it was then that she realised she wasn’t breathing – oxygen replaced with ragged sobs.  
  
“Please don’t be ashamed of me,” she wept in a whisper. “I know I tend to fuck things up… but I don’t mean it. I swear – “  
  
Now, she barely heard his reassurances, or how they were interspersed with barks of ‘Not now, Mansfield!’ away from the handset. She wanted to laugh, shout hello to her old platoon and be the Molly that they had once known… but today, it felt as though she was long gone; buried beneath all the shattered bones she had strapped and the myriad of blood on her hands. “Molly James-Dawes.” Suddenly his voice was willed with the fever that she loved so much, the passion that made her fall for him in the first place. “You best tell me what’s going on _right_ now before I jump in the nearest helicopter, get over to you in Afghan and _spank_ it out of you, _is that understood?”_  
  
He sounded just like he had her first tour, almost to the word – obviously minus the spanking part. He had a thing about sulking when he couldn’t get his way and she had always loved to tease him for it… but now she wished nothing more than for him to suddenly grow a layer of nonchalance, to not care so she wouldn’t have to keep on… covering up.  
  
_If I tell you… all hell will break fucking loose!_  
  
Opening her mouth, her lips shook and her breath trembled along with them, as though the power of the words in her throat were too much for her body to even contend with.  
  
If she said these words, told the truth, it would all be over… and a whole new tidal wave of shit would hit not just her life, her career, but that of Charlie too… and therefore, collaterally, that of Sam’s. She couldn’t do that – _wouldn’t_ – she had long decided. She wouldn’t hold her husband back again – not after all but getting him shot and then only just convincing him not to give up his commission.  
  
Charles was many things… but he also belonged in the army. To have one without the other would be to strip his soul from him…and she would not be responsible for that. She would not be like Rebecca.  
  
So, she did what any soldier worth their salt would do… and disobeyed.  
  
“Really, it’s nothing,” she choked hastily, trying to sound as though she were clearing her nose and therefore dismissing her tears. “Just being a silly – y’know me when things get on my nut.” Through gritted teeth, she swallowed the lie down with the salt of her tears. “I gotta’ go – these buggers might gonna need me to save their boney arses tomorrow!”  
  
“Molly James – are you crying?”  
  
_No shit, Sherlock,_ the usual Molly would have said. Today though, she could say nothing.  
  
“Please don’t. Please.” Closing her eyes, she could see him in his desert camo, like a second skin on him, all tanned and zero-body-fat, eyes looking up at her all round and pleading, (half resembling the puppies Molly used to will she could rescue from Pets At Home as a kid). “When you cry… It’s like…we’re back at that mountain pass – ” The moment he said it, all she could see with sheets of dust, choking her now as it did then. Oblivious to her fractious, trigger-happy memories as they assaulted her, he was still talking. “ – and you’re running off like the bloody hero you always have to be – even when it’s fucking _stupid_ – crawling through that minefield to get to Smurf – ”  
  
She scoffed at the memory of her friend and his trigger-happy habits of wondering away from the rest of the Section. “ – _Bloody Smurf.”  
_  
“ – and it’s like I’m still there watching you crawling on your hands and knees and my whole heart is in my mouth because I can’t help you…all because of my bloody _station_.”  
  
She doesn’t remember much of that herself, other than she woken up ten metres from where she felt her foot nudge the old, buried Russian explosive. When had she come to, coughing on a cloud of thick desert dust and couldn’t see past her own nose, it had been him, Captain James her CO, that filled her senses, yelling at her down the radio in the way every Officer would when recovering his men.  
  
_‘Dawes! Can you hear me, Dawes?! Come in Dawes! Dawes!’_  
  
“I had to go in,” she defended weakly, sniffing hard. “I was the medic and the poor bleedin’ sheep shagger had only done gone got a bullet in his groin!” She thought of the alternative – her Bossman going in instead – and felt sick at the thought.  
  
“That’s beside the point – I – “ She heard him sigh, heavy and telling of the expanse of his chest. “You got us off track, Dawsey. How do you _always_ manage that?” For a moment, there’s a saucy tone to his voice as he hinted at all the times she liked to distract him with… ‘unsavoury activities’ – or whatever bloody shite he called sex – a deep, rumbling promise, and it sets her blood alight with a repressed, animalistic desire for him, for his contact, for his sheer presence.  
  
“It’s like I’m there again,” he continued, “helplessly watching you crawl in a bed of explosives and then there’s this _boom_ and I have to watch you get thrown through the air again and I can’t do anything – ”  
  
The memories suddenly shutter her vision.  
  
_‘Dawes!’ someone screams into her ear – the radio is screeching and hissing. Everything hurt, like a dull ache… but mostly the high pitch squeal in her ears. She can barely hear… What was that?_  
  
_‘Dawes, speak to me!’_  
  
_The Captain – why could she hear the Captain? Wasn’t she dead?! Bleedin’ hell, he’d only followed her into the afterlife… Perhaps heaven did exist, maybe._  
_‘Dawes!’_  
  
_Sitting up, she comes to the rather dazzling realisation that she’s_ not _dead – that the sky she can only just make out through the dust is the Afghan sky! She expects feel her the worst, she finds she has her legs. She didn’t get blown into pieces! And not an ounce of blood spilled! Opening her mouth, filled with dust and leaving her heaving for breath, she fights with everything she has to speak – so his cries, sweet Bossman’s anguish, can seise._  
  
_‘I’m alright! I’m alright, Boss!’ She hears them then, her mouthy platoon, whooping down the radio. ‘I can’t believe I still have my legs!’  
_  
She could tell by how he paused that he was visually reliving it too.  
  
“Having to listen to you cry…sort of feels like that,” he wheezed, leaving her without words. “I know it doesn’t make much sense, since one involves, you know, death, but – “  
  
“ – Yeah, yeah, _alright_ ,” she dismissed roughly. “I ain’t soft like you, Jamesey, but I fink I can get the jist!” It sounded brusque but really it was self preservation, because she knew that if he carried on like that she would never get her composure back. As she wiped her eyes over and over, her nasal passage well and truly congested. Taking a breath, she felt her chest wheeze of its own accord, sounding like a long, near-silent sob. When she spoke next, the strength and humour in her voice had been replaced with a quiet plea. “Enough wiv’ the soppy shit please, Jamesey.”  
  
She could hear that he was dissatisfied with her excuses, but predicted he was also exhausted, because his reluctance was not forceful anymore as he replied.  
“Forgive me if I might gonna not believe you, Dawsey.” There was a slight humour in his voice at her bad grammar – which by now she knew was bad, but she used it to make him smile. “Because my Molly doesn’t cry much.”  
  
Still to this day, having him talk about her with such a title left her tingly all over.  
  
He sighed, seeming to drop this battle. “Double away and try to get some shut eye, okay? It sounds like you’re exhausted.” Suddenly, she could here a cheeky grin return to his voice. “I have no doubt you might gonna need to save the odd sleeping AA or two before you’re done, so you’ll need all the energy you can get.”  
She managed a smile, remembering the times they would go on patrol on her first tour, only to find said Afghan Army lounging at their posts, playing cards and sometimes even sleeping. She had asked him then what they would do, once the Western allied forces left them to fend for themselves… Well, it was only now that the very surface of the answer to such a question was beginning to emerge.  
  
Such a thought meant that the memory suddenly shifted. Suddenly, it wasn’t a happy one she could see in her mind, but a poisonous one, just like all the others, dissolving into hazed memories of her ID-ing half of those same AA men’s corpses, including sweet young Rolex boy – as she had named him because of his American rip off watch – after they had been ambushed by the Taliban. They had been strewn across the dirt path, shot at point blank range… None of them had even stood a chance.  
  
“I worry about you, Molly,” came Charlie’s soft confession then, thankfully pulling her from the morbid memory. “I mean, I worry anyway, in the husband-who-can’t-shut-up-about-his-wife kind of way,” he continued, rambling slightly. “Elvis keeps having a go at me for it, actually.”  
  
That made her smile, because how couldn’t it? The idea that her Bossman was no longer one hundred and ten per cent professional one hundred per cent of the time and all because of her left her feeling smug as anything. She pictured him running a hand through his perfectly parted hair, threading through the tangle of cropped army-regulation curls. “But… lately, I’m worried differently.”  
  
The normal Molly would have been outraged and offended at the inference that her husband was worried for her, at the idea that she needed worrying about… but today, she felt numb to such stubborn independence. Today, she felt herself pining so hard that she was ashamed of herself. Today, she felt like no soldier.  
He carried on, oblivious to her shame. “I feel like you’re drifting away, Molls, and that makes me _shit scared_ because I know how wonderful life can be now I have you. You and Sam, remember? When we get home, we still need to take him to Cadbury World and gorge ourselves on all the chocolate we can – once we get out of bloody fitness dietary recommendations… Yeah? _Please_ focus on that.”  
  
_Home_. Once, East Ham had been home, stuck in a tiny flat with her gobby sister and loud, screaming baby brother and a mother who was half way between the two… Home wasn’t where Charlie grew up either, in the echoing, four storey mansion of Royal Crescent in Bath. While it held many happy memories; their first date… their first and most _mind-blowing_ sex session… it wasn’t home. It place stood too much as a pillar of their differences in Molly’s eyes, no matter how bloody breath-taking it was. She felt like a bee in a hornet’s nest in that kind of house while her own flesh and blood could barely breath in a two bedroom flat.  
  
No. These days, home was simply wherever Charlie was… though she had never told him as much. With a face as handsome as his, he hardly needed the ego boost!  
  
“I’ll try,” she managed to agree, attempting multiple times to clear her throat and failing.  
  
“I need you, Molly. The Army bloody well needs you too, but forget them for a second.” She hiccuped in her teary haze, teetering on the edge whenever she listened to his determination. “ _I_ need you. _I_ do – for _always_ – so please, _please_ look after yourself.”  
  
In her mind, she pictured stroking his face and pushing her hands into her hair the way she knew he loved, hidden away the privacy of their homely Bath flat where no Army regulations or international wars could reach them.  
  
“I love you, Bossman.” She used his nickname to avoid having to say it, his real name, which barely passed her lips as it was but never passed her lips on tour. It was as though saying it made the hole in her chest that yearned for him all the bigger, as though her body called for him every time she managed to say it.  
  
She heard his breathy attempt at a chuckle, because they had had many a disagreement over what they called one another, but thankfully he let it go.  
  
“Ditto, Dawsey.” Her felt her face contorting into surpassed sob as she faced the reality that he had to go…as did she. Thankfully, he didn’t sound unaffected either, as he cleared his throat in his usual ‘I am a man’ way and sniffed once or twice.  
  
But then, he surprised her.  
  
“I can’t breathe without loving you.”  
  
She swallowed hard at his declaration, having to bite down on her lip with such strength that she could suddenly taste the tang of blood. “Ditto.” The word was a croak at best, but she could tell by his laugh that he heard it.  
  
“You don’t think enough of yourself – you never have. I’m so proud of you, of everything you’ve done – of going out there and being brilliant, like I told you to be! When will you get that through you _wooden_ skull?!”  
  
Huffing a laugh at his utter inability to see how bias he was, she couldn’t help but run her mouth: “Bleedin’ hell, Bossman! Don’t let the lads ‘ear you talkin’ all soft!”  
  
There was another moment of silence, as heavy as the last, before he suddenly laughed. “There’s only one person to blame for my softness!” he added, candidly. “And she’s mouthy and cockney and has a frightening obsession with Coco Pops!”  
  
“Yeah, yeah – blame me! Y’secret’s sake, you girly git!” She had to hold the phone away from her mouth while she gasped for air, forcing the sense of humour and false cheeriness up from the depths of her abilities of deception, her emotions making her throat seem to swell. Despite her attempts to be nonchalant, her voice continued to rise in pitch against her will. Swallowing hard, she knew it was time. “I really should go. I have to be up at 04:30. Speak soon, okay?”  
  
On the other end of the time, she heard him yawn. “Of course,” he said, though his voice remained terse and quiet, as though slightly suspicious. “I expect to hear all about it when you save the next lot of boney arses!” She swallowed back the paranoia that swamped her that he knew what she was holding back…that he knew that a mess she had gotten herself into. “Stay focused,” he ordered. His soft, rounded posh-boy vowels washed over her in a rare moment of serenity. She was still unable to still still with the panic and fear in her veins, but when Charlie spoke to her like that, with a tenderness and a constant concern, she never felt more at home… just for those few seconds. His catchphrase was one of her favourite things. “Stay alert. Stay _alive_.”  
  
“Speak for yourself, Bossman!”  
  
She managed a tiny sound of humour, though it was a hair’s breadth away from dissolving into another kind of emotion all together. She looked up at her favourite thing about tour, the blanket of countless stars, and she wondered absentmindedly if he was looking at them too.  
  
“Molls?”  
  
Her name filled the melancholy quiet like a lullaby, making Molly wish it were like any other day, because it had been, it would have sent her into a lull of wonderful dreams, in a world where she was her old self again… and her hands had never known the blood of her loved ones.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
As he repeated the words that lit their romance all that time ago – a silent reminder to look after herself for his sake if not her own – it struck her once again that he might just be psychic. Somehow, Captain Charles James always seemed to know what to say.  
  
_“Come back to me.”_  
  
She would, she vowed, as she did the first time and every time since…

 

Days later though, she realised it should have been her demanding such a thing of him, typical reckless heroic nonce that he could be, as her Corporal awoke her with the kind of news that, had she been a weaker person, would have stopped her heart.

 _“I’m sorry for the intrusion, Dawes, but… We’ve had comms from our aid work in Kenya.”  
_  
It was as though the world had ripped out her lungs with a few simple words.  
  
_“I’m sorry, but…it’s your husband, Dawesy. He’s been taken.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry -   I've mostly been posting this on FF since there's so much more of an OG fanbase there, so I forgot I never posted chapter 2 here.... Here you go.**

I am so honoured by all the reviews that sprang up on my first chapter! After all this time, I really didn't think so many people who shipped Captain Dawsey would still be out there, so this is so very reassuring for me!

THANK YOU

_X_

_Disclaimer: All rights reserved BBC and Tony Grounds ©_

This chapter contains themes that some people may find distressing.

* * *

**II**

* * *

 

Molly could never quite remember getting back to her quarters after that.

She managed, just about, to keep herself together in front of Major Beck – but _only_ just. As she hurried from the Opps tent, her feet kicked up the Afghan dust, the equivalent of forty fags a day on the lungs, as she stumbled unseeing through her glassy eyes in desperate need of seclusion. She could feel her pulse roaring in her ears, drowning out all the commotion of the camp entirely. She had to keep herself breathing deeply, in through the nose and out through the mouth, as she could feel the urge to reverse the contents of her stomach up over her boots was but one slip of concentration away. The heat of the day was long past, thankfully, but still she felt an alien sensation of sweat on her brow and down the back of her neck, despite the shadow of the sunset across the camp. Her nut was screaming only one thing, and that was the name of the man who was once her Captain, now her world, as she fell into some kind of trance.

When her superiors had _first_ told her of the news, she had been anything but trance-like. She had frowned and wanted to laugh, expecting that any moment Charlie himself would leap out from behind the canvas of the Opps tent, grinning in his hypnotically confident way before cracking up with: _'You really think you could get rid of me as easily as that, Dawsey?!'._

But, her confident, smug husband never did appear… and as each second ticked by, it became painfully clear that she may never see that smile again.

_"How?"_ she'd demanded instantly, falling by default into professional, detached pragmatic questioning as she knew he would. "How did it – ?" Her voice had broken against her will and she had squeezed her fist at her side in inward fury. She never was good at detachment.

"He and Lance Corporal Lane were at the refugee camp at the Somali border. There was contact with the various armed Al Shabbaab who reside there amongst the general refugee population. Two Section were escorting the ambulance after the fact when one of the Rover got roadblocked. The ambulance was ambushed and Captain James moved in without hesitation on foot in an attempt to neutralise the situation. They captured them both and Two Section were unable to pursue fast enough because the group had blocked the surrounding routes."

With every word foretold, Molly felt irrational, venomous _anger_ begin to bubble to the surface, her skin feeling as though it might look red as a tomato. That _bleedin'_ man and his _bleedin'_ heroics!

"He could never have pursued on foot without back up, but I think we can assume he did so in desperation and care for his medic – "

A lump rose in her throat that was so large it made her entire throat ache. " – Y'don't have to tell _me_ about Captain James' tendency to be a hero, sir."

Major Beck, a kindly looking but very large man, gave her a knowing look that was also heavy with sympathy because they all knew precisely what she meant. He had been the Major in charge on her first tour, a superior of both herself and Charlie back in the days when they began their covert romantic relationship – though he hadn't known so, obviously. Charlie gave up his commission after that tour for a while: the Army never really accepted it; said he was far too promising a young captain to quit so early on and for 'no real reason'. What they didn't know then, of course, was that Charlie primarily gave up his commission as a Captain so that there would no longer be a mountain of protocols and regulations keeping them apart and making their relationship forbidden.

Simply put, he was sacrificing the rest of his career so that she could build hers.

They managed to keep their romance secret until long after Molly's first deployment training Afghan medics, even for a short while once Charles started up his Army career at Brize again.

When she returned the first time however, she had known that she had no choice but to go to him, as her body and mind yearned for him after eight weeks away. It had been incredibly alien to be out in Afghan without him. Meanwhile, Charlie had been attending rehabilitation for his bullet shattered leg. When she had arrived back at his parents house in Royal Crescent, she could still recall precisely how he looked, as he'd opened the door wearing a surprised, delighted expression and his beloved gardening gloves. The moment he had closed the door behind them, she had pushed him up against it, all reservations she had gathered on the train ride up in her nervous, fragged brain forgotten.

They had spent the following three days locked up in the empty house, lost in a haze of love making and laughter that was incomparable with any other happiness she had ever experienced before.

It was also that weekend that he asked her to marry him.

That had thrown a spanner in the works a bit to put it lightly, as once they had told their families, word had spread like wildfire. Everywhere Molly James-Dawes went in the Army these days, tales of the young private on her first tour who managed to snag her public-school-Rupert of a CO were never far behind. Not that she minded – she was long past minding. Life with Charlie was worth any gossip or badgering that she might get from the lads in her new platoon. It had even been worth the look of utter disbelief, slight disappointment and suppressed amusement she had received from Major Beck when they had told him.

"It goes without saying that you will be updated you as and when we receive comms," the Major replied instantly. Though his tone did bring her out of her memories, it did little to calm her heart. "Obviously, you are to be offered immediate emergency compassionate leave – "

His words were interrupted by the entrance of another man into the tent. He was tall and slightly lean but incredibly strong with a head of hair so blonde it looked as though he could have been Hitler's dream Arian child. He nearly always wore a look of contentment that hid his inward, disgusting arrogance and raging misogyny. He was her Commanding Officer, Captain Lawson.

At the sight of him, she felt panic set into her a blood – the very kind of panic that she had been feeling the last few days. Her wrists itched from where his hands had held them down; her throat dry as she began to feel the need to heave. Suddenly, it was as though the news of her husband's disappearance faded completely from her memory, just for a second, as her human insinuating to _fucking run_ took over.

"Sorry, sir," came the deep Scottish voice that now made the hair on her neck stand on end in the worst way. "I was needed up on watch. What have I missed?"

By now, her hands were shaking beneath the desk where she'd been asked to sit down – (no soldier was _ever_ asked to sit down) – her senses filled with every trance of the latest arrival into the room, screaming for her to run from _His_ presence.

This wasn't paranoia, this was pure, unadulterated _fear_ that no Taliban could stoke in her blood quite the same _._

Instantly, she felt weighed down with regret that her last conversation with Charles had been dominated by the latest demon to shadow her mental state…followed by guilt that she had chosen to keep the truth from him. She _should_ have told him. She should have told _anyone,_ not be sitting in the man's presence has though _He_ hadn't tried to –

No. She couldn't even _think_ the words.

"I was just updated James on the latest news about her husband, Captain Lawson," the Major continued, _completely_ oblivious to Molly's internal feverish distress at the entrance of their colleague. "It is of course fine with you that she take immediate compassionate leave – ?"

" – That's it?!" She hadn't meant to interrupt, God knew it was one of the golden 'don't' rules in the Army, not to mention that the words came louder and harsher than intended, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it in that moment.

She couldn't quite believe it – they were going to send her _home? Home_ to the boring, mind-numbing nothingness of East Ham, or _Bath_ even, where everything would make her think of her Section who _needed_ her and the man she loved, who could be dying in the dust somewhere, all alone and shit-scared.

No, she _couldn't_ go anywhere… Not even when Captain Lawson had assaulted her in the black of night the night before.

She should say something, telling _someone…_ but, at this moment, there was only thing that was important in her entire universe…and that was getting Charlie back alive.

She knew what had to happen now.

"All due respect, sir, I can't leave – Two Section are gonna' need a medic." Swallowing hard, she tried not to picture worst case scenarios in her mind, but they seemed to wallpaper entirely over her ability to be rational.

"Indeed they do – they've requested a temporary medic who should be flying out tomorrow –"

Instantly, the words were out. "Let me go, sir! – "

Captain Lawson's eyebrows rose. " – Surely you're joking, James?"

Temporarily, she was paralysed by the use of her real last name from his mouth, making her feel nauseous. No one used it in the lower ranks other than on paperwork, mostly because she still introduced herself as Molly or Dawsey – that way, she could at least hope to make a slight connection with people _before_ they put two and two together about who she was.

"No, sir!" she urged as politely as possible. "Y'need someone who knows the section back to front and that's me!" Clearing her throat, she pushed all traces of emotion far, far away. _C'mon, Molly. Channel the bloody Bossman's stern-face. Don't get all girly now._ "They'll be panicked and fragmented without their Captain, sir, and they know me – and I'm only six hours away! We're swimmin' in medics here, sir – "

_Let me go so I can save my love… and get away from Him._

"Lance Corporal James – that would be highly irregular!" the Major intercepted rigidly, leaving Molly with a heavy, frustrated feeling in her chest.

"But sir!" she protested. Now she had thought about it, she had absolutely nothing to lose, ignoring her _so-called_ Captain entirely. "You see how many medic trainers we have here now. My lot, they're well good, they can cope! _Please,_ sir." She was looking the faces of the men, cast with uncertainty and disbelief, and felt a slight tremor of fear in her frame as she felt a certain pair of eyes looking over her like those of a predator. "Speaking frankly, I just… I _need_ feel like I'm _doin'_ something. I ain't gonna be able to just sit 'nd wait for news, sir."

The Major didn't look at all persuaded, but Captain Lawson was parade a fake look of thoughtfulness. Molly _knew_ by his tone he was simply _pretending_ to agree with her, so he'd _look_ like the caring, supportive CO that he should be.

"I suppose, without Captain James in fact present at the camp, her presence breaks no regs, sir – "

" – Captain!" the Major berated as he began to concede before turning back to Molly with a look of conflict on his face. "It simply _cannot_ happen, James. Not only is it against all regulations, it would be a _massive_ conflict of interest for you to be the acting medic when it is your _husband_ who is captive – "

Closing her eyes, she felt her stomach sink even further. _So this was it, then._ She instantly had to swallow repeatedly to keep the massive threat of tears from boiling over. _This was it._ She was going to be stuck here, stuck here with _Him,_ Her Captain who had touched her without her permission, while the love of her life, her _Charles,_ could die, any second, in dirt and squalor.

"Understood, sir," was all she could say, barely breathing through her clenched teeth. "Please let me know… if you hear… "

"Of course, James."

Thankfully, Major Beck began speaking to Captain Lawrence, meaning Molly could slip away without fear of Lawrence accosting her with his wondering hands the moment she left the tent.

From there, she had stumbled, dumb and feeling almost detached from her body, to her pit in the women's quarters: the one place the Captain could not get to her.

Everyone was working or busy eating their scoff, so there was no one else in the tent. It was only here, finally, that she could collapse…and when the tears came, they came both like a flood, but also like a vacuum. They soaked her face until they then began to created puddles on her t-shirt and still they kept coming. They sucked out all other aspects of her immediate reality, leaving her with nothing but all-consuming panic and despair, with no sense of where normality and sanity began.

She could _not_ lose Charlie. She could lose everything…but couldn't lose him _._

She had never seen herself as one of those women who relied on anyone – she had never replied on her family even – never mind relying on a man… but somehow, her happiness and entire _existence_ seemed to be entirely tangled with the assurance that Charles would always be with her, alive and smiling and happy.

So, the very idea that he might not…left her in the grips of a frightful panic attack.

"Molly?!"

Suddenly, Jackie was at her side; her old friend from her very first tour, back when Bastion was a massive expanse of a camp and she was still learning the ropes. Jackie was from Yorkshire, up north somewhere that Molly had never been, and as kind as every northern stereotype said and then some. She had come back to Afghan to train medics too, so it had been a wonderful surprise for Molly when she first arrived to find one familiar face.

In the haze of her panic, she was only partially aware of her body being moved, her head being pushed between her knees where she rocked at the edge of her bed. Her mouth filled with the taste of salt as tear after tear fell down her face until her cheeks were wet to the touch.

"Molly. Breathe. In through the nose, remember?"

She wasn't aware she was wailing low in her throat until Jackie pulled her against her chest and began shushing her repeatedly, smoothing her hair like her mum would do when they were cuddled up in her bed together.

"He's gone, Jackie!" she wept inconsolably. "They've bloody got 'im and they're gonna torture him and I'm never gonna see 'im again!"

"Molly, slow down! _Who?_ What's wrong?!"

Her hands suddenly felt warm, too warm. When she looked down at them, she could have sworn they were covered in hot, sticky texture of the Bossman's blood. Suddenly, she was back there again, on the bridge, holding her beloved's life in her hands as she pressed her hand in his abdomen.

All that fight…only for him to die at the hands of a cruel stranger in the desert.

"Bossman!" she answered in a wail, curling into herself as she barely dragged in another breath. "Al Shabaab… _took him…"_

"What? Captain James?!"

Molly flinched at the sound of his name and another wail escaped her. She would have cringed at the weakness of the sound, had she been able to process anything other than all-consuming grief.

"Oh, God – Molly! I'm so sorry – "

" – They'll… _behead_ him… They'll find out he's a soldier…and _behead him!"_

Suddenly, cold swept over her and it took her a long moment to realise her friend had poured cool water over her head, leaving her feverish skin feeling slightly refreshed and shocked her out of her fog a little.

"Molls, you don't know that," she tried to assure as she cradled her friend with a grim expression. "Special Forces will be on it already."

"But, I do, Jackie!" she cried, blinded by her misery. "You know as well as I do that them terrorist groups show the most cruelty to anyone who is military. They – " Before she even said the word, she was wheezing, " – _torture_ soldiers and they fucking cut their _heads_ off and they video it and put it on the internet – _Oh bloody Nora,_ I'm gonna be sick!"

Instantly, she doubled onto her side in an attempt not to vomit on her feet. Jackie managed to get a sick bag from her med-pack in time before she was sick all over herself. Images flashed unwelcome in her mind as she stared down at her feet, sparks and dark spots dancing across her vision as she attempted to draw in enough oxygen not to pass out.

Once she had stopped retching, there was a long, drawn out moment of quiet, only the sound of Molly's laboured breathing cutting through the tension between them.

_I can't breathe without loving you._

Charlie's declaration from the night before rang in her ears. If only she had known there had been a possibility of it being their last phone call. There was so much she hadn't got a chance to say… and now she never would.

"Oh, Jackie," she wept, stroking the skin of her forearm where, not too long ago, Charles' elegant curly handwriting had been marked in black Sharpie, before army regs had dictated she wash it off. ' _I love you, Mrs. James,'_ it had said. When she looked down, she could still it, even though it was long gone, along with the much less elegant ' _Ditto'_ she had written on his in return…just before she kissed him goodbye. "I don't want to sound all bonkers or nothing, but… I… _really_ don't think I can live without that bloody man."

Jackie looked at her friend with sympathy as she helped her wipe her eyes and found a tissue from the medical pack to wipe her running nose.

"You won't have to, Molls," Jackie assured, forever as solid as Molly's Nan's sense of humour. "SF will save him and you'll get him back and he'll be back to running poor recruits round Brize in no time… I promise."

Molly often marvelled at her friend's ability to be so _sure_ of everything, so concrete and strong when Molly was so often a distracted, fragged out mess. She suffered long and hard with nightmares after her first tour, despite the fact that her second short tour teaching medics had left her feeling fulfilled and… grown up.

Her mind wondered back to the day she returned from her first tour away from Two Section in an attempt to 'be brilliant'. It felt like a lifetime ago, when she had skipped, filled with the brim with butterflies, all the way from the train to a certain Rupert's doorstep in Bath, uninvited. Standing with a somewhat smug grin on her face, she watched as Charles' deviously handsome face came into view, sending her heart into overdrive in the process, and his expression shifted from despondency, to surprise, back to his usual smitten cheek as he took in the sight of her.

"Missed me?" she'd asked, opting for humour as she always did because if she hadn't, she'd have said what her bleed raced to say. _Seeing you, I feel like I can suddenly breathe again._

He'd said nothing, but the moment she was inside, the chuckle on his lips had died away and been replaced with a hesitant look of longing, like a lost little boy. He'd made her tea, just how she liked it, barely limping anymore, but she felt him but an inch from the curve of her neck as she went to sip it.

"What?" she'd giggled, nervously, gripping the mug tight because she knew her hands would otherwise shake.

"I'd forgotten how beautiful you are."

That had done it. She'd blushed like a bleeding tomato.

"Are you sure them medics at Headley ain't missed somethin' mega with your eyesight, Boss?"

He'd barked that breathless chuckle, just like he always did when she made him laugh with her one-liners… but then did something unexpected. He went quiet, to the point that she turned to look at him inquisitively, only to come eye to eye with the face whose eyes were wet with tears. But, it couldn't be tears, could it? Because The Boss _didn't_ cry.

"You're really here."

She recognised the look he wore, the glassy whites of his eyes shining, seeming to make a silent plea of some kind, while his jaw was tight ticked with tension. His words were a statement, almost sounding surprised, as though he doubted she'd come back.

Without a word, she moved close enough to reach up and push her fingers into his curls, all fizzed and unruly from where he'd been working in the garden prior to her arrival. Stroking the soft flicks back, she felt a lump rise in her throat at the vulnerable way he instantly dropped his head and leant into her touch, just as he had that day in the hospital. This time though, there was no icy Rebecca to interrupt them.

"I'll always be here," she had found herself whispering before curling up onto her toes to press a delicate kiss to his forehead, then down over his brow until she found his lips, where warm breath was escaping thick and fast, as though he'd been running. "A hundred per cent by your side."

She watched the spark of recognition heat up his eyes at the words. He tried to clear his throat, his hands dropping to pull her body as tight to him as possible. "Ditto," he'd attempted to say, but it came out cracked and brittle as though he was on the verge of losing control of his emotions.

As the memory whirred around her skull, the hot Afghan air filled her throat as her breathing escalated with the pain she now faced, dragging her back to the present. Who could she ever know such a moment of delicate delight again?

There was quiet again as Molly had to convince herself not to begin crying again every few seconds. She quickly fell into the cycle of grief, finally reaching the point when you are sure you have no tears left, thus momentarily forgetting her awful, terrifying new reality… but only for a moment, and then the tears and shortness of breath would begin all over again.

"I just can't stop thinkin'," she choked, sniffing unattractively as she tried to clear the second tsunami of tears as it assaulted her. "I only talked to him last night…" Her voice broke on the final word, rising in pitch and sounding like she might be part frog, "…and there's so much I could've said!"

But that was always how life was, wasn't it? Regrets were formed after naive decisions were taken and cowardly decisions to hide and file away for later too priority over the truth… It was mighty frightening, the truth. In this moment, it felt her feeling dwarfed and almost crusted by its sheer size and _weight._

"We all have things we should have said to people but didn't for whatever ridiculous reason…"

_But you aren't hiding the fact your CO…attacked you, all hands and nails and teeth, pressing you against the wall of the shitter in the black of night…_

_"_ Try not to worry, Molly," Jackie continued, unaware. "For one, it won't do you or James any good."

Molly bit her lip so hard it hurt, wanting to scream that her friend had _no clue_ the deceit she had managed to build between herself and the most important person in her life in that _one_ conversation… and if she did, she'd be sickened by the truth.

Molly was excused from her duties for the rest of the day by the Major, which she was glad of. The last thing she wanted was for her trainee Afghan medics or the rest of the British lot to see her face all red and puffy from crying… or worse, to cry in front of them. Instead, she curled up in her pit and shut out the world. When she came to again, it was dark outside and the rest of the tent was filled with her colleagues, sound asleep around her.

The moment she opened her eyes, she regretted doing so. There was a crisp envelope beside her head, evidently left there was the latest postal drop by Jackie. The elegant script marked on the paper so familiar that Molly only needed to catch a glance in the dark in her peripheral vision to know just whose hand had inked her name. For a moment, she was blissfully ignorant, lost in the fog of sleep. Then, the memories of the news she had received came back with the violence of a bullet to the chest.

Paying little mind to the consequences of doing so, she pushed back her sleeping bag pulled on her regulation boots and grabbing the treasured paper despite the fact it felt like fire in her hand, before making her way out into the dark in search of solitude. Up until two night ago, this had been her evening routine, just as it had been on every single one of her tours; she'd climb on top of the shitter to read her post over and over… and over again. Now though, in every shifting shadow and with every indistinct noise in the distance, she leapt out of her skin, half convinced that Captain Lawson was around every corner, ready and waiting to touch her against her will again.

Luckily, her anxiety seemed to be a symptom of her fragged, weary brain, as her Nazi of a CO was nowhere to be seen. Hastily still, she climbed to her usual perch. Once on top of the shitter, she could be seen by the tower guards, so was at no risk of being launched once she made the climb.

Where the danger arose, however, was in the shadows as she climbed down.

He'd been waiting for her, Captain Lawrence, with a gleam in his eye that left her shaking in her boots. He'd taunted her about being out when she shouldn't. " _There are all sorts of dangers about."_ She could still smell the mint of his breath, the closeness of which turning her stomach as it washed over her face.

_"I was just leaving, sir,"_ she'd tried to excuse, her voice giving a tone of normality that she didn't in fact feel at all.

_"No, don't go yet, Dawsey."_ She'd flinched at his use of that name, though at that point she hadn't quite known why, aside from the fact that it was what her second family called her and it was therefore a treasured name.

_"My name's Dawes, sir – and, with respect, sir, I'll just be getting back to my pit now, sir – "_ She'd tried to pass him, but in the shadow of the pitch blackness beside the shitter, he had her cornered. He pressed her against the tin hard enough to rob her of breath, his face an inch from hers in an instant.

_"Oi! Steady on – "_

_"– Scream and we both know what will happen."_

She'd fought him as hard as she could, truly, but he was much stronger than her, being so broad and tall. As his hands wondered, she'd even tried to bite him, but that had only made him more eager. He held her head back by her hair, pressing it hard against the tin of the structure. She had intended to shout, to scream, to _make_ someone come over and catch him; she had always thought the stories about women who daren't say anything were bollocks, since she'd been a mouthy Newham gal her entire life and never therefore had a problem speaking her mind… But suddenly, in that moment, she understood.

_"Say anything,"_ he threatened, once it was over, _"and you will find yourself out of here before you can say ISIL!"_ She'd pushed against him again, but that had only made his smile bigger.

_"Bullshit, mate!"_ she'd rebuffed, near to laughing at him, both due to nerves, but also his arrogance. _"Get your grubby hands off me, or I swear I'll put my rifle through your chest!"_

She'd meant it, she really had, but then he'd began to talk. Slowly feeding her doubt, reminding her of the misogynistic nature of the army… Reminding her she wasn't much. " _You're funny, Dawesey… You really think they'll believe you over me?"_ Her scalp had burned under his hold. _"The loud-mouth cockney girl who_ fucked _her medalled CO? Who lied for nearly a year about her relationship with said superior? Only to then_ marry _him?"_

Slowly, she thought back to all the times she had received looks or comments from her male comrades once news had gotten out, once she had told the Major and not been allowed to work with the familiar, kind faces of Two Section. There had been many, but she had repressed her dislike for them. Charles ever hadn't noticed them, but that was simply because whenever she was with him, the people that stared daren't even glance twice… But, the moment he was gone, it was like they didn't care. After all, it wasn't like she was to be feared. She was no Captain… She was no _man,_ neither.

So, she did as every abused stereotype did… and she didn't scream. She bite his hand and used the split second of reprieve to run back to her pit. Unfortunately though, sleep escaped _her_ afterward. She'd even been too numb to cry.

The next night, of course, Charles had called… and the tears had arrived with a vengeance. And now? She had to live with the further guilt that she not only lied to the one person who mattered, but that this conversation, so economical with the truth, may well be the last conversation she was ever to have with him…

She could never be sure how long she sat, trembling despite the heat, staring down at the unopened letter. She knew it was from Charles; ever since the very first _Rosebaya_ incident she could spot his loopy hand anywhere. With a grimace as though in physical pain, she realised he must have sent it a few days ago, not knowing, as none of them on earth did, that the following days might just be his last.

She contemplated not opening it, as she knew it probably was not wise to do so; she was already in a state of mental breakdown without more lost words from him that she would never be able to reply to… But somehow, she felt she owed it to him, since she knew he loved writing her letters so much.

Well, that, and she just needed to hear his words; even if it was her mind, piecing together the sound in her memory.

Gripping to the paper suddenly as though it were an anchor, she eased the envelope open; taking her time, careful not to let it go in the wind.

It took her over three attempts to read it, as while firstly her eyes kept skipping ahead, utterly overeager and frantic; secondly, she couldn't see through the films of her tears. Winded, she began to read the words aloud; her own voice drowning out the memory of his.

 

_My Dearest Molly,_

_I'm not really sure why I'm writing to you considering we can now call one another. I suppose I like the romanticism of it… Okay, I love the romanticism of it. Yes, I'm soft and no, I'm not sorry for it. I'm only soft for you… Always you._

_I digress – how are things? Our humanitarian mission here is feeling more like a 'hit your head against a brick wall' brigade. Just like you said in Afghan, it really feels like everything we do is one step forward, three steps back. I'm not quite sure if bloody Al Shabaab_ realise _we're only here to accompany the medics and doctors or if they just don't bloody care even about the health of their own people. I suppose perhaps they don't. What is the world we live in?_

_I hope everyone is swell in Afghan and you're being as brilliant as you always are. How is maid-of-honour-of-the-year Jackie? I trust she's keeping my mouthy wife in line._

_Two Section are being their usual, utter cockwomble selves – Dangles is a Lance Corp, now. Did you ever think we'd see the day?! He's keeping up, though, so no worry yet. Georgie says hello. She's really shaping up to be wonderful, Dawes. You were right to suggest her indeed. She's a very efficient medic – though she does suffer from getting a little too in-fucking-volved… just like someone else I know._

_All this being said, I bloody miss you being here. Georgie is a utterly take-no-shit medic… but she isn't you. There's a Molly-shaped hole in the Section… but mostly, there's a Molly shaped hole in me. I miss you so much I have to shut you out when I'm on duty, did you know that? Completely freeze out any thought of you because your ability to disarm me is as strong as it ever was. I thought it would get easier, being away from you, but it's only getting harder. Even now, writing this – if you let a_ soul _know about this I will deny it and spank you into next week, Corp. James! – it's like…there's this ache in my chest._

_If I think about you being so far away, 4,879 whole fucking miles, I just feel my patience and sanity just chipping away piece by piece – and then I think about the fact you're in a war zone and I feel like my head is going to explode!_

_I suppose it's just husbandry worry but it's chronic, Dawsey, when I know where you are…without Two Section…without me. I want nothing more than to cuddle you up in my arms, even if it is in this regulation camper bed, and never have to get you go again… but we both know that would never be what you would want. You get sick of my cuddling and get fidgety long before I ever do._

_If I'm utterly candid… there are moments when I'm not so sure I'm cut out for this; not anymore; a life with you if a life with just_ so _much to lose…_

_My time is almost up as Georgie's about to drag us out on patrol again to see if we can eyeball this suspicious man she thinks she saw… Let's hope she doesn't have trouble as her shadow like a certain ex-medic of mine._

_Keep safe, my darling. I can't wait to come back to you… so please, make sure you come back to me._

_Oh, and don't forget to be fucking brilliant!_

_…Did I mention that I love you?_

_Yours, for always,  
Charles x_

 

Choking on her tears, Molly was silent as she stared up at the ever present stars, so bright and all-knowing compared to how dim and distant they seemed at home.

"Where are you?"

The question come as a croak and was unexpected and she whispered it into the dark, her hands trembling as held the new letter in her hands like it was a frail bird.

The void of silence that followed only made the chasm in her chest feel ever-more expansive, as though her soul was eating itself. As she tried to do as she was trained, _tried_ to steer her thoughts away from the grim, pessimistic worst-case, she had no fight left to do so.

"Please – bloody _hell_ , Charles – just – _please…"_ Her whispers felt hopeless, but they came as easily as breathing, as though pleading for her life. She looked at every stars she could, her eyes sweeping the view, urging, _straining,_ for something, _someone_ to hear her. If there were some bloody deity… it was about time he showed himself.

It was no accident that her next words could have been mistaken for a prayer.

_"Come back to me."_

The silence surrounding felt like a resounding reply of a much more desolate kind.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

**III**

* * *

 

Charles had been trained for this scenario. In his days at Sandhurst, he was taught copious strategies for how to cope should he and his men be captured by the enemy. The key was, of course, create a rapport with the kidnapper as much as possible should one’s life be threatened, though this was hard to do without sharing any classified information, which would of course be an act of treason.  The other most important thing in times of terrorism, however… _deny your position._  

_“You! Soldier!”_ was the exclamation he was dreading… but thankfully, it hadn’t come.  He had been accompanying Georgie in the Ambulance when it had been ambushed. Thankfully, it possessed no windows and could be locked from the inside, giving him just enough time to strip himself of his bergen and greens shirt and throw on a nearby scrubs top. He stashed his rifle beneath medical supplies, adrenaline coursing through his body as he mentally ran through what would keep him alive.  Hide your identity as a soldier, because armed militant terrorists made beheaded martyrs out of British soldiers. 

As they had broken in the ambulance door, they therefore found two medics, both dressed in half scrubs, half fatigues, with no dog tags in sight – they had hidden them in a broken oxygen container – attempting to save the militant insurgent whom had just been injured. They shouted, ‘We’re medics! We’ll help your friend, just don’t hurt us!’ until their throats were raw, having been thrown into the insurgent four by four and driven off into the flat, unknown of sub-Sarharian Africa. Their faces were covered roughly by course hoods that scratched and itched in the consuming heat. Charles strained to to make best use of the one sense he could still use, listening for whatever snatches of language he could hear.  He knew Arabic somewhat, Pashto from all his time in Afghan, and had been trying to pick up some of Kenya’s native Swahili while on these last two humanitarian missions. He never had much of a skill for speaking, but he was good at listening; his CO had always said that was what made him such a strong leader, after all. 

As he listened, disappointed to not catch much of the foreign conversations around him, he attempted to close down his mind from imagining the worst, as he had long learned it never helped anyone. However, as he felt the barrel of a stranger’s riffle against his back where he had been thrown, face first, into the back of the truck, he couldn’t help himself. Visions of the safe life at home he left behind rendered him swallowing down ripples of unhindered emotion. _Sam,_ his poor little boy whom so often asked him why he had to go away but also so proudly told all his friends his dad was a soldier. His parents, so kind and supportive of his career, despite it’s slight madness and obvious danger… and _Molly._ Instantly, his heart juddered and stuttered as though temporarily stalled. His beautiful wife, his best friend, mouthy and gorgeous in equal measure. If he were to die here, he would close his eyes and think of her face, every detail he could, so that she could still be the last thing he sees, just as he had always vowed. 

_Enough,_ he reasoned. _Such shite will get you nowhere._ He heard Georgie at his side, her breathing a little heavy. Their hands were tied now, so he couldn’t reach out and touch her in comfort as he wanted to; he couldn't even see her from beneath the hood. For a long time, they were cramped in that truck, every so often intimidated by arrogant, foreign voices and rifles in their backs. 

When the vehicle finally slowed, they were dragged from the truck and thrown down on the rocky dust. Charles nearly felt the dull aching pain of the hard ground beneath him knees, as he was far too preoccupied attempting to regain his spatial awareness. He coughed as the dust and dirt clouded around his hooded face, hearing Georgie doing the same. It wasn’t long before their hoods were finally removed, leaving them blinking at the sudden harshness of the daylight.

“Salam alaikum,” Charles greeted respectfully, as much as it pained him to do so, considering these men deserved no respect if they were the type to kidnap innocents. However, it had the desired effect, as the elder looking of the group began to mumble amongst themselves. “Who is your leader?” He knew it was a risk to even speak. However, the information would be valuable if they were to have any chance of escape. The response was silence, then when he rose his eyes and repeated himself louder this time, it became a kick to the ribs.  

“No! He’s just a medic! We were trying to _help_ your man!” Georgie shouted beside him, but he shushed her, ignoring the burn in his side. 

“I am leader,” came a authoritative voice. As Charles lifts this eyes, he was faced with the a masked figure, tall and broad, and with a surprisingly pale skin tone. His accent sounded to be foreign, not native to the region, perhaps Iraqi, though his English was clear. There was countless amounts of literature, Charles could suddenly recall, that demonstrated the ability for one inherent, born leader to be able to identify another. Here, Charles could feel that this man could see that same streak in him, too. 

“Who are you?” the masked man demanded, pointing a rifle downward at Charles’ head. He felt his pulse spike, unused to being unarmed, as he felt his fingers twitch in his bounds subconsciously for his handgun, which he usually kept in the holster at his hip. Unfortunately, he had been forced to abandon it or otherwise risk of being shot as a soldier. 

“Medics,” Charles replied, calmly. He then repeated the word most similar that he knew in his basic Arabic. “We are assisting at the refugee camp at the border,” Charles answered, clearing his voice of emotion and employing his best _‘stern face’_. 

“Liar! You were with army,” the leader barked, evidently doubting his story. The man’s eyes were visible just about his make shift muslin mask and they squinted, Charles feeling thoroughly as though he was being sized up. “ _You_ leader.”

Charles, long skilled at keeping a stoic expression, didn’t flinch at this accurate suspicion, despite the fact that such a secret could have him killed if it were proven. He felt his stomach swirl with nerves as he responded with he and Georgie’s choreographed lie. “No, I’m just a medic. I’m no soldier.” As the man circled him, Charles threw a bone. “I’d have an identify tag, if I were.”

 

“ _They’re kinda’ like friendship bracelets, doncha’ think?”_

_Greeted at the door by the potent scent of acetone again, he now no longer seemed to find the smell nearly as offensive; now it was just an extension of Molly.  
_

_“What?”_

 

One moment he had been focused on the husk of the dusty, desert sand and the many dark, hate-filled eyes that surrounded him, and the next Molly’s giggle resonated through him from nowhere; the mention of dog tags triggering agonising emotional whiplash as he was suddenly there again: home, in Bath, with _her_. Suppressed terror became momentary, familiar bliss. It would have sent Charles reeling onto his knees if he had not already been forced to the ground. He could have sworn she was beside him again, in that moment. It made his heart stutter painfully. 

_“Careful, Dawesy,” he had drawled as she tugged at his tag while he decorated her shoulder with kisses. She’d been sat on the floor of their living room, painting her toes; totally flouting regulations, as had always been her prerogative._ _“One_ might _begin to suspect you_ care.”

_She had cackled, unruly, loud and utterly undignified, teasing him for his use of language as she always had. “_ One _would be so lucky!”_

As he felt the chilling cool barrel of the rifle against his head, he considered that he should never have thought a single bad word about that sound; in this moment of terror, there was nothing he would not do to hear her cackles one last time. 

With his next breath, he attempted to banish all thoughts of her. The irony being of course, in doing so, he was banishing his usual only lifeline.

_Focus,_ he betrayed himself, attempting to burrow himself deep into his centre as he was strip searched. They tore off his clothes, piece by piece, humiliating him for hope of finding proof of his being a soldier. The masked leader, tying him up in a makeshift cage within the slum-like compound of abandoned, bullet-ridden buildings, began sniggering as he withdrew a glinting beacon from around Charles’ neck. Instantly, Charles cursed himself, wanting to thrash and beat the ground until his hands turned to dust for bringing it with him, for now he was never to see it again, but he had promised her he would never remove it from his person. As it hung from dirty knuckles in front of his face, it taunted him with what now felt like his previous life, which resided a massive five thousand miles away. _Thank fuck she is there and not here,_ was his only thought. 

“Wife?” the leader questioned, as though such a prospect was funny. “Does your wife know you _kill_ my people? Kill _our_ wives with your bombs? Deny us our Caliphate?”

Charles kept his mouth shut, though his eyes never left the masked man’s, noting the sorrow that resided there as he spat such words. Thinking back on all that Molly had taught him since their first tour together – _‘Don’t you ever just worry it’s all been for nothin’?_ and then – _“What are we then, if we’re not involved?” –_ and he dismayed. She had been right, to a degree. Perhaps the British Army’s orders, interfering time and time again in the Islamic world, were not moral. Perhaps there should be more to being a leader in the Army than doing politicians bidding, never asking questions. 

In that moment, he felt a unprecedented glimmer of Stockholm Syndrome; suddenly, this man’s sorrow felt like his own as he was unable to even comprehend what state he too would be in if a drone had killed Molly while she was going about her day. He could only imagine the hell and fire he would seek on those responsible. Right there and then, though the Officer in him would never admit it, he too would watch the whole world burn if it took her away from him. 

His captor held the ring in his gloved fingers, torn at the knuckle and ragged, and appeared to be reading the tiny inscription on the underside there.  Charles, beneath his foot, had to resist every urge to leap and snatch it back, shackles or no shackles, grinding his teeth painfully.

_“Bossman, the tea to my cup; spoon to my Coco Pops; sun to my Afghan sky:  Ditto, forever. M.”_

He had to hold his breath as he was assaulted with memories as the words met his ears, almost as though he was re-realising their significance for the first time. He had laughed at her when she had first shown him the inscription, sat in their wedding car, having just become man and wife. 

 

_“Oi!”_ she had chastised, feigning hurt. _“That’s dead romantic, that is!”_

He had kissed her quiet, her protests soon diminishing as he took hold of her face, so small in his large hands, and simply gazed at her. In her ivory dress, she had been a vision of everything he knew she would be as a bride; her trademark blush only complimenting the very fragile look in her eye. Her face was almost void of make up, though her eyes were more defined; he liked it that way. After all, the bare and natural Molly was the one he had fallen in love with.  Her hair, always so heavy and soft against his fingers, had been curled and pinned high off her face and neck, and he had basked in the exposed skin, as he had been yearning to do since she appeared at the alter by his side.   
  
_“Am I really?”  
  
“Really, what?”  
  
“‘The spoon to your Coco Pops’?” _He hadn’t been able to resist coming to rest his face against hers. Her skin was always velvet soft against his. _“Because frankly, Dawes, I’m not sure if I should be honoured or concerned by your chosen imagery. Don't quit your day job.”_

_“Um, that’ll be Lance Corporal Dawes-_ James _to you!”_

 

“Tell me, silent Englishman. Who is _‘M’_?”

The leader’s fractured English, surprisingly good, broke him from fragment of a treasured memory. Charles, almost grateful to be pulled from reminders of such bliss, kept his eyes down, instead watching as each blood droplet from his nose splattered and stuck to the sand. 

He was punched when he did not reply, Arabic insults being thrown at him from various henchmen spontaneously, language that he long had memorised from his many previous tours. Aware that rule number one of being kidnapped was to try and create a rapport with one’s kidnapper, he rose his eyes to the masked man, holding his eye to show he was not afraid as he answered loud and clear in Arabic with the truth: “Ya Hayati.” 

“A _woman_ is your ‘life’?” He lifted his eyebrows and laughed, almost as though they were allies having a conversation over a drink. “For that, I might just let you live long. To witness the day the Caliphate burn her alive…” Charles’ eyes never left the glinting silver band as the leader threw it to the sand and spat on it with a laugh, feeling a strange sense of hopelessness and guilt swarm in his gut. “Just like your people did to mine.”

When they found no proof of his being a soldier, they threw his scrubs top back at him along with his combats, (he had almost forgotten of his nakedness), not even allowing him to redress as they then took Georgie in their sights. Instantly, Charles heard himself bubble into uncharacteristic visceral fury, knowing that Georgie, as a woman, was at at great risk of being abused in this situation.  

“Leave her!” he growled before he could stop himself, attempting to throw himself in her direction against his shackles. “It’s no need! I’ve proven to you, have I not? We’re _not_ soldiers!” For that, inevitably, he deceived a numbing punch to the mouth and a kick to his ribs once he was down. He instantly rose his head, gritting his teeth against the pain to seek out Georgie’s gaze. She was just out of his reach, thrashing against them as they pulled at her scrubs. To her credit, she fought them hard, though it was of course useless.

“Georgie – look at me.” Her dark hair stuck to the sweat and blood on her head, but her dark eyes were all too clear in their terror. Heavy, large tears were barely contained by her eyelashes. In those eyes, he was suddenly struck with a realisation he never thought, as a British Army Major, he would ever voice. “Don’t fight.” He knew by the look in her eye that she was utterly aghast by his order, after all, they were soldiers! If they didn’t stand up for themselves then who in the world should? But he also knew something else: that in situations such as these, you should save all the energy you have and not give them a reason to treat you even worse than they already will. _“Don’t fight,”_ he murmured in his softest of voices, hoping that his eyes would convey his thoughts. _Save energy. Stay alert. Stay alive._ “It’ll be over soon,” he whispered into the space, a stark difference in volume from the shouts and jeers that surrounded them.  

“She is valuable to you.” The masked leader observed in a introspective tone, his eyes seemingly smiling. “And she is beautiful.” He was watching Charles’ face, that much was obvious. Little did this stranger know, the physical beauty of the entire world could never challenge the inconceivable bond between Captain James and his wife; his greatest friend. “Such temptation?” 

While Charles barely kept tears back from his eyes, he still never broke eye contact with his comrade as they stripped her of her scrubs, looking for dog tags or weapons, groping her as they went and laughing at her ‘pale’ flesh and western ‘man’ clothes, calling her a white whore in their Arabic tongue.

“But what about your _‘M’_?” Something must have given, even just a little, as the masked man’s eyes glinted menacingly, knowingly. There was a pause in the assault on Georgie as he breathed out a sound of realisation. Meanwhile, Charles dropped his eyes, unable to see anything but Molly’s grin, haunting him, leaving him feel bare and somewhat departed from this reality. “ _Ah_ ,” the masked leader taunted, as though he had been given a scared clue in a puzzle. “She must be a masterpiece if she rivals _this,”_ he traced Georgie’s face with false tenderness, who turned away in disgust.

Charles didn’t let himself look at Georgie’s naked flash as his mind was yet again drawn to his wife. Yes, Georgie _was_ beautiful – he _was_ a man, of course he was aware she was beautiful – but beauty, the army had taught him, dissolved into insignificance when one was teetering between the precipice between life and death. His eternal longing for _Molly_ , bright, effervescent, _addictive_ Molly, had never really much been about physicality, not until he was already in love with her. She was his comrade, having risked her life to save his own, plugging his wound with her bare hands. More than that, she was the only woman to ever make him laugh until he cried and yet also trigger in him such guttural, _desperate_ love that it made him sentimental enough to want to weep, even after many months, whenever he walked past their wedding photograph hanging in the kitchen. 

He remained silent, for by _God_ she _was_ a woman unparalleled, even by someone as good and beautiful as Georgie. He may be bias, but he would swear on his life to that truth and no bullet, knife or torturer could fracture it. 

Accurately predicting that their captors would get bored with them soon enough when they found nothing, Charles tuned them out, relaxing into their manoeuvring of his body as they jeered at him, letting the punches come. Inevitably, this meant that he was beaten even more, the militants roughing them up no doubt so that they would look adequately beaten in whatever hostage video they would soon be forced to partake in. 

They were shackled in the make-shift shelter, only partially protected from the unforgiving strength of the East African sun. The day passed slowly, marked only by the increased parched nature of his throat and the gradual departure of the sun. 

“How will they find us?”

Charles, never one to be partial to hysteria over strategy, withdrew within himself, attempting to recollect the movement of the truck and visualise how far they could possibly have traveled. He could feel Georgie attempting calm herself and let her training kick in – wait it out, preserve energy, stay alive – but he knew by her fidgeting and occasion attempts at making conversation with Sabaab’s dogsbody, a young, somewhat flea-bitten looking adolescent boy, that she was struggling. Truthfully, he did know the answer. He had somewhat of an idea of the kind of strategies used by Special Forces, thanks to Elvis, but nothing he could predict.  He knew they would already be being searched for, however; that their families would already have been informed… 

Instantly, he shut down the next thought before it even formulated entirely. _No, Charles._ He took a deep breath of the consuming heat and revelled in its ability to be a distraction. _Don’t fucking go there._

By the passing of the last of the sun’s rays, Charles could no longer ignore his thirst. Numerous requests for water, each more urgent than the last, went unanswered. When Georgie asked a third time, the anonymous militants laughed and placed a dog’s bowl, filled to the brim, just out of their reach to torture them. 

“I’m sorry about your ring, sir,” Georgie’s soft Manchester drawl whispered through the bars, as they were now shackled, separated by rickety, rusting iron bars. “The bastards took my engagement ring too.” When he did not reply, she began to ramble into the silence between them, as she always did – just as Molly would do. “Not that mine has half the sentiment – don’ really mean half as much as yours, really.” Her voice was suddenly low, sad, as though coming to a realisation. “No offence to poor Jamie and all.”

He had become fond of Georgie, as fond as a married Major could be of their medic who was also his wife’s good friend, having been recommended as Two Section’s new medic by multiple colleagues also. She was good at her job: dedicated, sharp, wilful, but also kind and caring. That being said, she became involved where she shouldn’t, just like Molly. It was for this reason he pitied her unfortunate personal life, because she deserved a stable person to come home to; not his _arsehole_ of a friend Elvis who left her at the alter the previous year. Her new man, Dr Jamie, he had only heard about through Molly’s Facebook stalking; the words ‘nice but dull as a plank’ were used, if he recalled correctly. 

“How did you know you loved her, sir?” The question felt small, filling the massive silence between them as their captors temporarily seemed to disappear for a while, leaving only the young boy with a rifle to guard them. “Molly, I mean.”

Charles frowned, his eyes still closed as he sat in the dirt, against the wall, wearing only his combat trousers and boots. He had been attempting to map out the movements of the truck as he could recall them – Sharp left, half a mile straight, right, right again, left, about turn, straight road for approximately 50 miles? – but her question disrupted him. He tried his best to swallow the automatic irritable response and took a breath. Thoughts of Molly were a bliss he felt he could not afford; a kind of torture, actually. 

“Do you make a habit of asking your CO such personal questions?” he questioned dryly, unable to help himself. His ability to banter with Two Section was almost a reflex, after all this time. He barely recognising his voice as it croaked, completely dehydrated.  Clearing his throat as he knew he did whenever he was uncomfortable, he finally rose his gaze to hers, only to find her looking thoughtful. He sighed at the sight, already anticipating her train of thought. 

“It’s just that… I ‘aven’t seen anyone more…a _unit…_ than you two.  It’s like there’s no join, between where one starts and the other begins, even though you’re pretty bloody opposite – _if_ you don’t mind me saying, sir.”

Charles couldn’t help himself – he laughed, as painful as it was to do so. “Sounds like you have us sussed, Lane.” 

Suddenly, they were sent reeling by a sudden bang to their cage and a aggressive order of _“No talking!”_ from their young guard as he jabbed at Charles’ head with the butt of his dated rifle. 

“Hey!” Georgie instantly yelled, launching herself at the bars that separated them, managing to manoeuvre enough to lean her head against them. “He was _answering_ me!”

Charles managed to sit up again, his head now throughly aching, though he barely let out a grimace. “Leave it, Lane,” he heaved, suddenly aware of how exhausted his voice sounded. 

The two were now quiet again until the young guard was distracted, Georgie managing to manoeuvre herself to look at the injury on his head. He dismissed her, but just as Molly would, she all be ordered him to get as close to the bars as he could so she could see. 

“D’ya often give Molly this much grief when she was your medic, sir?” she chastised humorously, though all humour felt hollow with the raw nature of their voices. 

“She’d say so. The amount of blister plasters she went through,” he replied, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips at the thought of how she liked to tease him, too. “Best not call me ‘sir’, in case they hear.”

Instantly, she nodded, for once obediently following her Commanding Officer. 

“Doesn’t look too bad, s––“ She managed to catch herself, even though her voice was as low as it could be without being a whisper. “You’ll just ‘ave a headache or two.”

Charles quirked his eyebrows, as this was hardly news. “No different from being stuck with Two Section daily, then, _still_ trying to cut bloody slits in their fucking eyebrows.”

Somehow, they managed to whisper a laugh. In that moment, selfish as it was, Charles could not have been more grateful for one of his men to have been in danger along side him. “Y’aren’t half right there!”

–x–

By the time night fell completely, the clear near-luminescent moon highlighted the glint of every rifle and the furrowed brows of every hateful stranger. Charles' thoughts had inevitably trailed from strategy, the thirstier and hungrier he became. He had been dragged away from their makeshift cell and questioned again, much of the same. When he had provided them with nothing more, they had spat at his feet and thrown him back into his shackles. 

"Boss!" Georgie called into a whisper, her voice trembling as they slammed the door to his cage, crawling and dragging her shackled feet behind her. "What did they do?! Are you—?!"

He was now sure he had broken ribs, as breathing triggered a white-hot sharp pain through him. He lay, slumped against the stone behind him, attempting to focus on oxygen. He trembled, as the desert was very cold with the setting of the sun, though he barely noticed. Their anonymous captors offered them nothing but a broth and warm, slightly unsanitary looking water, but they took it with argument, rushing to consume to the extent that Charles felt it dripping down his chin. 

"Just the same...questions," he breathed, his words fractured as he tried to ignore the pain. "They were arguing. I think they are undecided...on what to...do with us—" The words were too much as he broke off, breathing hard. 

"That can only be good... can't it?" 

He didn't like to give anyone hope where there was no certainty, but conflict amongst their captures could most definitely only be a positive sign. Number one rule of war: where there was weakness, there was something to exploit. "Hopefully so."

Georgie, only separated by a set of bars, looked as though she had been attempting to sleep in the dust, though the likelihood of managing that was minuscule, especially considering the track marks of tears on her cheeks. The shock of her dark hair was all he could see out the corner of his eye, a painful reminder of home, where he would wake to a similar sight. 

"What do you think they know?" Georgie asked inevitably, her question small and frightened, reminding him of the fresh meat he used to come across in Basic. "At home? By now?"

He found himself wondering what his wife was doing in that moment, wishing he could see the stars where the makeshift tin roof blocked his view. Did she know he had been taken? Surely so. Rebecca, Sam, his parents however? Most likely not until the morning, as the Army would first have to send out home visits. 

It was all he could do but nod.

"Jamie won't rightly know what to do with himself," Georgie whispered. "Though, he's so busy with his own work he'll probably be the last to know." She didn't even sound resentful, as one might expect, but almost... resigned. 

 

_'Jesus, Molly! That's a little harsh!'_

_He had been laughing, leaning over her shoulder as she tilted her laptop screen towards him, despite the fact he was trying to chastise her for her bluntness._

_'What?! I_ said _he was nice, d'n I?! Just dull as a plank, tha's all. Still a better pick than that Elvis, mind you – in a month o' Sunday's!'_

 

He stiffened against the memory, yearning to hear the familiar near-lullaby of that endless cockney voice, rather than mental reflections of it. 

"I'm sure he'll be distraught," Charles defended softly, though his words felt like some sort of autopilot. "Molly always said he was nice." 

Involuntary depictions of how his wife, queen of overreactions, may have reacted swamped him then, leaving his throat feeling closed up with emotion he had been attempting to pretend he did not possess. He hoped she had not cried too long, remembering how desperate and hopeless her tears always made him feel. Perhaps she could find something to do to take her mind away from such worries, he considered, since she was in Afghan, though somehow he already knew that was wishful thinking; a way for his mind to try and absolve the guilt he already felt.  

After all, every time they parted since the very first time, he had made her take the one same vow and each time, without hesitation, she had taken it. 

_Come back to me,_ he would say. 

_I will, don't worry,_ she would reply.  Like clockwork. 

What a painfully simple request, and yet it was the one thing he could now no longer promise with certainty. She had always come back to him... but now, it would be he who might break their vow. _Don't go there._

"I'm sorry." The whisper slipped from his lips and took him by surprise, so soft it barely reached his own ear.  There was no logic in apologising to the vast, empty desert, of course, but the guilt he felt when picturing his wife's despair was unparalleled to any that had weighed on his shoulders before, with perhaps the exception of being faced with Smurf's mother after the death of her son a second time.  

He knew Molly loved to sit on roofs and stare the stars when she was on tour, so perhaps he had spoken in the delusion that she might hear him, or at least feel him, looking up at the same sky as he tried to.  

He must have looked thoroughly distressed – Molly always told him he had a face as expressive 'as them mines, init' – because Georgie was no longer speaking, but instead studying him hard. 

"She won't blame you, Boss.” 

He was not sure to what Georgie was referring to at first, momentarily so lost in his own thoughts. Then his chest began to ache as it all hit him again. 

"She will." He wanted to laugh, because of course she will. "' _Bleedin' heroics, Bossman! What have I told ya' about heroics?!'"_ Imitating her felt so easy, fooled him temporarily into feeling close to her. Then, his smile slipped; no warmth survived long in the grips of terror.  "But no more than she'll blame herself."

He could practically hear Georgie's questioning gaze from where he sat. "Why? She wasn't even here—?" 

"—Exactly," he finished, heaving a heavy sigh. She would never forgive herself for not being here instead of him; he knew that was true because it would be how he would feel. "But _fuck,_ am I glad! I don't think I've ever been so glad to have a wife in Afghan!" His voice sounded thick suddenly, full of emotion he didn't realise had surface. His typical clearing of the throat did little to banish it. "I don't know what I'd do—"

He cut himself off; the idea of Molly here in the hands of militants and torturers too much to bear.

"She still calls you Bossman..." Georgie sounded as though she was smiling, but he couldn't know for sure even if he had the energy to turn, as his eyes were now glassed over with tears, yet to fall. "After all this time!”

"Yes" he choked, the word cracked and broken in his throat. "She's not much partial to change." He grits his teeth then against the memory of their first tour, when she had been little to him but a private; all wide, conversational eyes and smart mouth. He then shook his head to himself, the chill of the night air bringing back Afghan, almost as though it was running in his veins again. His tongue tucked into his cheek, fighting a sudden smile. "She's always been so stubborn!" 

"Name me a woman who isn't!" Georgie agreed with vigour, though it did little to cheer him. 

He was not sure he knew how to answer that.

"Something wasn't right," he confessed into the night, barely aware of Georgie now. "When we last spoke. Something..." he trailed. "She was keeping something back from me." His frown felt as though it had set into his features like stone; Molly did often joke it might, one day, should the wind change. "I should have made her tell me, called her CO, been there for her more—"

"—No one could ever do what you do and yet give such energy and care to another person like you do, Boss... and she knows. _"_ Georgie was quiet for a moment, until he felt her nudge the bars with her shoulder in an attempt at comfort. "She'll survive." The words had weight, because they weren't false. She didn't say 'She'll be fine', because they both knew that 'fine' was not a state that anyone escaped in from any war zone. Instead, the words were earnest, founded in truth and _belief_. He envied her ability to sound so sure, for all certainty seemed to have suddenly abandoned him. "From what I can see, Molly always does."

He nodded, not trusting himself to reply. 

_Her walls are strong,_ he wanted to say, but he couldn't find his voice. _But little use are they when a siege is being triggered from within._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was born out of a series about war, loss and learning that some rules are most definitely built to be broken. 
> 
> Literally as I was writing this chapter, I became aware of the news that so many lives had been taken in Manchester this week; all in the name of the same warped, hateful ideology that I had been writing in this story. 
> 
> I feel so proud to be from North England; the kindness and instant acts of community in the face of terror should remind us all that there is more that unites us than divides us, no matter what our religion or region, language or colour. 
> 
> Interestingly, this is Molly and Charles' message too, I think: love really does conquer all: war, terrorism... and even army regulations.

 

* * *

** IV **

* * *

 

“How are you, Molls, love?”

She wanted to bark that such a question was bleedin’ _stupid,_ but she didn’t even have the energy. She had been avoiding that very question around the base since _it_ happened

“Even _worse_ than you’d probably expect to be when ya’ husband’s kidnapped actually, mum.”

“O’course,” she excused apologetically, sounding as though she herself was sniffling. “Sorry, stupid question.”

“ _Come of it!_ Not you too, mum!” she tried to protest, her throat still feeling as tight as it had been days ago. “I’ve blubbered enough as it is––!” Tears threatened to break their banks again and rose a sense of panic in Molly. She was just so _sick_ of crying. 

“I know, I’m sorry, love,” Belinda excused, rambling as she always did. “It’s just so awful, ain’t it? Charles is a top bloke; doesn’t seem like he could hurt a fly, really. He wouldn’t want to be sad, though, Molls. He’d want you to keep busy – you _are_ keeping busy, aren’t you?”

Molly’s eyes were crunched so tight with impatience that she could see sparks of colour in her vision. “ _Tryin’,_ mum,” was all she could manage, her voice frail and pathetic. “They want to send me home.” 

“Well, that’s good, ain’t it?”

_Home._ She was not sure if the word felt more like a prayer or a curse. Home, the flat she and Charles now owned together, a sweet little place in Bath that suited her expectations and her modest beginnings. (Although she had contributed all she could, it had been considerably less than Charles had). It was a place that she could retreat to, a sanctuary; certainly not something her parent’s home could ever have been. It was quiet and all that surrounded her there reminded her of nothing but the best of times; copious photographs from their many collective tours, punctuated with the emotive addition of their wedding photographs, which took pride of place on every mantle and kitchen wall. 

She had jested when she used to first visit him at Royal Crescent that Bath wasn’t all he ranted and raved about, but secretly she had grown more attached to it than any place in the city she came from. 

Looking down, she thumbed the treasured rings that hung on a cord around her neck.

Bath was home now, but only because it was where Charles was.

“But I don’ think I can go back there, mum. Not without him––” Her speech became broken as she bit back a sob, though no tears broke their barriers this time. Memories that felt as fresh as that very morning were immobilising; welcoming, soft, tired smiles over the rim of mugs of teas and cups of Rosabaya; fierce kisses interrupting disagreements over ghosts of past guilt. So often she would wake, still haunted by the occasional nightmare, memories of bomb vests, strapped to sweet, innocent souls like Bashira. There was _so_ much blood in her dreams, especially when she was feeling fragged. Charles had been like a balm to a wound in that respect; with the application of his continued sweetness, and such surprising tenderness, daily, her wounds had begun to heal. The calmness had finally returned to her nut a little, because if there was one thing her husband was, it was calm, sure, _strong,_ and for that she owed him a never ending well of gratitude. 

Now, in the four days since Charles had been taken, her nightmares returned, filled with new images, though just as bloody as before. Warm memories that stirred butterflies in her belly would one by one turn sour, teasing her with a taste of the bliss of what once was, before warping into images of Charles’ dead and lifeless face. Only now, there was no hot, reassuring arm curling around her to rouse her from her terror, no whispers of love against her hair. 

Mental aspirations of all those nights lying beside him, beneath him, basking in a new kind of all-consuming passion she had never known existed before she met him, were the worst of all. Each, without fail, would transform from a dream wrapped up in precious memories to a nightmare about _Him,_ her CO, the one who had… _hurt_ her. 

Instead of inviting, warm brown eyes, the colour of chocolate, that could strike up a conversation all of there own, it would be ice-like blue eyes that would greet her; the memory of gentle and calloused olive hands, with such a skill for the ability to caress and hold, would suddenly become one of pale and freckled limbs which liked to grab, pinch and _take._

Worry for Charles had become inevitably intertwined with an all-consuming guilt. Shame had since taken seed in her chest, the kind of shame a person could only feel if they had been touched against their will. 

“Then come home to us! That’s what family’s for, Molls.”

_But you’re not my family, really,_ she wanted to say, though she never would. _Charles is my family._ Instantly, Molly swallowed shame for thinking such ungrateful things; it was not her mum’s fault that she and her daughter had nothing in common, that her daughter ran off to the Army and found comrades who would understand her far more than any civilian ever could. 

“I might,” she excused, suddenly wanting the conversation to be over with. “I’ll see what them lot decide to do with me and let you know.”

“How’s your slimey new Major bloke you mentioned in your letter?” 

Inhaling sharply, Molly had to take a moment to backtrack, wondering how her mum knew about Captain Lawrence and just how _much_ she knew. Then, she remembered the letter to which Belinda had been referring; it was one she had sent in her first week, mentioning that her new CO was a cock, which he had been, but not just to her. 

Little did she know, of course, that a few weeks later he would take things further than just being rude and arrogant cock. 

“Her’s a Captain, mum – not a Major,” she correct automatically, rubbing her brow in frustration and stress. “He’s still a twat, mind,” she snapped, knowing her mum would think little of it, since she once said the same about Charles. “Even worse, actually.” She would tell her the truth, but not until she had told Bossman… and certainly not over the phone. She was suddenly truck with terror at the possibility that she may never have the opportunity to tell him the truth… and therefore never raise the burden of her current guilt. 

Strangely, she wasn’t ashamed at the thought of telling her family of the assault. They knew her history with men who had questionable ethics and therefore understood her devotion to Charles without much questioning. This was also probably why, besides the obvious, they all too grew to worship Charles so much; he was everything the few boyfriends she had previously could have never been. 

She supposed that was why she felt hot, gag-worthy amounts of shame only at the prospect of telling Charles, because what if it made her sullied to him? After all, she was the girl that fell in love with her CO on tour, what was to stop her doing it again? She could barely comprehend how she had managed to bag him in the first place!

Such thoughts were not rational, she knew that. If she had the balls to tell the truth to Jackie in the days since it had happened, she knew that would be what Jackie would have said. Charles had _married_ her, after all; accepted her as she was and loved her for it. He would not dismiss her, especially not if he could see how distressed and fragged it had made her. 

Her mind once again cast back to their last phone call, when she had been reeling from the assault so violently that she had done something she never had before and wept on the satellite call, barely holding herself together. She could tell by his parting tone that it had distressed him and in hindsight she berated herself for it. She knew _,_ having married the bloke, that he pretended to be an island, all isolated and untouchable, when in reality he was an open book, should you know where to look. _Yes_ , he was the boss; _yes_ , he was known for his trademark stern face and dominant eyes, but she knew what many did not: this was only half the man. 

The other half barely kept back his tears as she wobbled towards him down the aisle at their wedding, (her knees had been shaking so much that she held onto her dad for dear life). This half was articulate, a great lover of poetry and instead of using his booming voice reserved for orders, his words could be soft, sometimes breaking or faltering with emotion his job had always taught him to pretend he did not feel. 

At their wedding, with Dangles’ masterminding, she had decided that she wanted to give a speech, even though it was not really expected for the bride to do so. She had panicked for weeks after announcing she was going to do it, deliberately keeping it from Charles, as she soon realised that, despite all that he had taught her by way of vocabulary, she still hadn’t got the words in her nut that would begin to do him justice. Instead, she chose to ‘fuck tradition royally up the arse’, as Smurf would have put it, after Dangles suggested that they do a performance for him together as Two Section, since the Boss had such a love for music. Fast forward to the wedding however, her nerves were so bad, she had cursed herself for saying she would do it. She had introduced their rendition of _‘Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart’_ , watching the utter bemusement on her new husband’s beautiful face turn to knowing, baffled glee as she announced his favourite song, and felt the entire time as though she might sweat the dress off. His smiling eyes became increasingly glassy, despite the fact he laughed. Perhaps the entire thing – getting married in a beautiful little church in Bath to a man she never thought when even look twice at her when they met – had been simply too overwhelming for them both.

As she sang those words again, all she could remember was the first and last time, when she and the Boss had been nothing but colleagues and he had demanded she duet with him to his favourite song when it Two Section’s turn to provide entertainment. It had been then that he had seen a glimpse of the _actual_ Molly Dawes, rather than the Molly Dawes on tour. It had been then that she had seen the cheeky bastard he could be, as he had winked at her, singing with his annoyingly beautiful voice. 

The memory felt so raw and poignant in comparison to the version of herself that she could see she had now become. 

As the performance had drawn to a close, Charles having been of course invited to sing the chorus with her one last time, Fingers had arranged for a little surprise of his own, as a picture was suddenly projected onto the wall behind the stage with the closing line.

There, in seven foot glorious colour, was none other than their Two Section pre-deployment photograph, taken the very first day they met. 

She had found herself repressing sobs before the performance was even over and so with the sudden emotional jab of the photograph, these had transformed into ugly weeping. Amongst the cheers and copious whoops of Squadies, she had managed to slip from the main reception room of the posh Bath hotel the moment the song was over and the disco resumed, needing to move herself from the noise and chaos to simply have a good cry away from prying eyes. 

Before she had even had chance to catch her breath after the first sob, she turned to find none other than Charles had followed, his immaculate navy dress uniform now unbuttoned at his collar as his chest heaved up and down as though he’d been out on exercise, cap and gloves long gone. It was only by looking at his face that she knew this exertion had been because he was trying to keep back his tears, which shocked her. The closest thing to such an expression she had ever seen from him has been the one he attempted to keep from his face after Smurf’s funeral: his lower lip seemed to pout as his usually expressive brow was suddenly smooth, leaving focus entirely on the red and glassy nature of his eyes. At the wedding however, this half of Charles James revealed itself even more than it had in the shadow of death, war and grief. 

She had tried to smile at him, explain and apologise away her tears, only for his own chin and bottom lip to tremble. “ _Fuck––!”_ she had gasped, feeling as though she may be on the cusp of some kind of attack with the lack of air her sobs were allowing her. She had bewildered herself, if she was honest, as the tears were ones of joy and, frankly, _disbelief,_ so she couldn’t even explain why they were suddenly arriving with such force. “I don’know why I’m––I just––” The breath had tried to draw in had sounded like a wheeze. “I think I might love you too much.”

His chocolate eyes, always so warm and fiery in their conversational nature, were unwavering and shouting almost too loud to bear. “Ditto,” he choked, his voice barely unrecognisable as the word was more of a sob. Suddenly, it was a though they were in their own little bubble, similar to how it had felt the day Sohail died and delivered news that had descended them both into a sudden fear of losing one another. 

One heavy tear, then another, broke from from his eyes as he attempted to make a nonchalant sound, perhaps in the hope of calming her. Instead, it did little but make her tearful smile wobble. After all, the sight of a loved ones tears only ever seemed to trigger more tears. 

He had remained a good few feet from her as she had been stood against the wall, arms around herself as though to try and hold herself together. In an instant however, he had launched through all distance between them and gripped her body to his in a hug unlike any hug she had ever been given. She had known without withdrawing herself that they were both crying, as she heard and felt the shudder of his breath against her neck, the near-painful tight grip of his hands around her back and shoulders. The kisses came next as he inhaled heavily in an attempt to swallow back his tears, the placement of each one random and frantic along her throat and up to her face, anywhere he could reach. She could remember thinking that he had been mouthing something against her skin in those moments. It wasn’t until he draw back enough to hold her eye again that she realised he had, in fact, been whispering; the words were soft and repeated, almost like a prayer. _“Thank you.”_

That alone left her holding onto him to keep herself from sinking to the carpet.

She had kissed him then, at first fiercely on the mouth but then repeatedly across his face as he had hers. He was not used to such overt displays of her affections outside of their private bedroom and she could tell that it instantly struck a chord with him, as he had always been more affectionate than she was. She intentionally therefore worshipped any and all skin of his face, suddenly desperate to hold him and never let him go. 

“Please,” she’d whispered, though she didn’t know why. “Promise me somethin’.” His hands were around her waist entirely, keeping her right up against him as her back was against the wall. Hers held his face, cradling it like he had done so many times as she told him fragile, terrified truths as though suddenly, they weren’t so frightening anymore. “I’m strong ‘nd that, Army wise,” she continued, watching his eyes smile even when his tears left him with little energy for move. “I shot a man and I save peoples lives but without you in my life… well… I think I’d drown in all that.” His grip had tightened, a reflex, as though flinching at the imagery. 

“No––” he had tried to deny. “No, Molly, it’s all _you_ ––”

“Wait––” she begged, aggressively sniffing before rattling on, afraid she’d lose her words. “I can save other random buggers, I can even save _you_ , when you get yourself all shot an’ that – but I can’t save myself, not without you. Half the time I can't even tell the difference between drownin’ and swimmin’, for God’s sake—" She gasped for breath, only to interrupt herself. " _That_ was meant to be a metaphor, I think, but also true since we both know I still can’t swim.” She tried to wipe her eyes, knowing that make up must be beginning to leak down her face, both of them laughing tearfully at her rambling, but he beat her to it, wiping her cheeks with loving delicacy. “Point is: the photo made me think, about the Molly I was and the Molly you showed me I could be an’ that… They both have one thing in common, though. One may have been a salon girl in uniform, with no prospects and no respect for her own safety and the other may be a fragged… loud-mouth… _mess_ of a Lance Corp… but... they've both always been yours. I’ll always be yours.” 

He blinked another tear with the confession, a flush to the skin of his neck and up his cheeks as though he was suddenly aware he had been crying. He reached up rush them away, but she beat him to it. 

“Please never, ever leave me – ever – _please_. ”

Her request had been so small, it had sounded like the utterance of a frightened child, but she knew he had heard. Pulling her close enough to press their foreheads together, the very first intimate contact they ever really had all that time ago, and stared into her eyes. Suddenly, his tears were no more, as his trademark certainty returned to his eyes. 

“I couldn’t. I’d be leaving a part of myself behind.”  
  
It was a vow of its own kind, to join the many they already had.  


_I need you one hundred per cent by my side._ I am, sir, one hundred per cent by your side.   
  
_Ditto._ Ditto.  
 _  
Always._ Always, _sir?_  
  
Come back to me. I will.

_I do._ I do.

“I’ve been yours since you fucking went up on that bloody winch and disobeyed me,” he whispered in reply. It didn’t escape her notice that he never let go of her, a hand always touching her somewhere. "Or perhaps when you came out in those short-shorts for exercise."

“And all to save a sheep-shagger who didn’t even make it a year––” The joke would have once been far too painful to make, but now it only felt right to use Smurf’ own humour in his memory. 

“ _God,_ I fucking love you,” came Charles’ reply, laughing at the state of his tear stained face as he pulled away enough to straighten himself, before reaching out to thumb her Military Cross medal where it embellished the centre of her dress’ waistband. It had of course been his doing, her being awarded it, after she had put her life on the line to save Smurf. It had made him furious, to watch her disobey him, but so unbelievably proud and awestruck, even though at the time he hadn’t been sure why. 

“Yeah, I know,” she replied, feigning arrogance as she had wiggled her eyebrows at him as his fingers found hers, intertwining with them. “Why else would ya’ be blubberin’ like a newborn?”

The joke left his mouth twisted in its trademark smirk as he had shaken his head at her. 

“Why, indeed.”

She stole another soft kiss, loving the soft tickle of the slight stubble the provided handsome definition to his jaw, with the hope it may soften the blow of her joke and make sure he knew she appreciated him opening up to her more than anything. When she attempted to pull back, he didn’t let her go. 

“I love you, too, Bossman,” she whispered, smoothing her hand over the curls of his forelock, now beginning to frizz and fall forward beautifully from where he had attempted to wax them back. He had dropped his head into the touch, almost as Sam sometimes did when she did it to him, with a slight, barely visible nuzzling her hand. “Especially in that dress uniform.” 

His eyes had been so warm, glinting at her compliment, she remembered never wanting to look away. 

“Shall we get out of here, _dear wife_?” he had murmured, bouncing on his feet as though he were Sam asking to sneak Haribo from the sweets jar. The word made her stomach flip. 

“‘Bout bloody time, mate!” She had replied as he had already begun pulling her down the corridor to find their honeymoon suite, leaving their guests to carry on getting drunk without them. She had thought he’d never ask.

Her mother's voice broke her from the memory. 

“Well, that’s a tad shit. I hope you get one up on ‘im, Molls!”

She tried to smile into the night, but the entire expression felt hollow. Everyone always had such faith in her; faith she so often felt she did not deserve. 

 –x–

The next day, after another night of very little sleep and tormenting nightmares, she did as she did every day and put herself to work. One of her most promising new trainees, Salam, was a kind and sweet young man and the only thing that rose her an inch out of the ashes of her despair. 

“Your man is down, bleeding from the upper thigh. Make sure you ‘ave bound it right, mate,” she instructed over the boy’s shoulder – she hesitated to think of him as a man when he was only eighteen, if that. “The tourniquet has to be as tight as possible, remember?” They were testing on someone who wasn’t injured, of course, having stopped to simulate a soldier being shot half way through exercise. There was some of the trainees under her charge who were pretty hopeless, but Salam truly tried hard, so she instantly warmed to him. In the first few weeks, she had found herself chatting to him after she found him looking sad on top of the toilets, just like she used to in the darkest days of her first tour. He had asked her about her life in England, interested to hear all about how it could possibly rain so much and what half of her English slang meant. He reminded her of Rolex Boy, the young boy she had failed to save from Green on Green on her first tour. He too looked far too young to be in the Afghan Army, with tidy cropped black hear and kind, almond shaped eyes. 

She could feel him watching her intently as she carried out medical training and listening closely when she spoke, though she had told him numerous times that her English was not good enough to be repeated. 

“What does this mean?” Salam had questioned weeks ago, looking earnestly confused when she told him not to take English lessons from her. “You English, yes?”

Laughing, she had offered him some of her sweet tea. “To be honest, mate, even my ‘usband likes to take the piss and say I ain’t.”

He had cocked his head. “Your husband does not understand your words, also?” His questions were voiced with such innocence she had to remember not to laugh.

“Not by half, mate,” she giggled. “Especially when I’ve had one too many Vera Lynn’s! He’s a Rupert, see. Speaks properly Queen’s English and that.”

“ _‘A Rupert’_ is…?”

She shook her head, looking up at the stars. “A rich bloke, usually. Speaks with long words.” Explanations were hard to come by, then she really thought about it. “Like Major Beck?”

He had nodded, understanding at least a little of what meant. “Your husband isBritish Army Major?” 

She’d smiled at the thought, still somewhat disbelieving when such a title was used. 

Now, after all that had happened to her, she knew he could see a change in his trainer. His eyes followed her as they finished their exercise and she instructed them to stow all their medical kits away correctly. Her eyes were down, no doubt swollen and red from hours of crying and sleep deprivation, and when she looked up, he was frowning in his earnest, questioning way. 

“Lance-Corporal,” he began once they were dismissed. “May I ask a question?”

Taking a deep breath, she sniffed and prepared herself for what was coming. “‘Course.”

“Some of the men are saying, talking… Is it true your husband is prisoner of Al Shabaab?”

Instantly, her hands stilled where she had been busying herself packing up excess equipment. Her knuckles were white, crushing packages of gauze in her fists as she attempted to redirect her automatic instinct to cry. 

“Not that it’s any of them lot’s business,” she scolds upon reflex. She barely recognises her own voice. 

“Yes. I am sorry––” Salam instantly moved to retreat, seemingly suddenly frightened of her, the thought of which making her even more miserable. 

“––It’s been four days,” she divulged suddenly, trying to smile when Salam turned back to her. “They ain’t told me anything else… I think I’m going a bit out of my nut.” Reaching up to wipe a single tear, she smiled at the boy, who looked so sorry it made her heart warm. 

“Nut?” he questioned. “What does this mean, _‘nut’_?”

She laughed, despite the fact her throat felt on the verge of closing all together. “Head.”

He makes a noise of understanding, looking down at his feet in respect of her rank. “I know this feeling – Daesh kill my family.”

Molly’s heart skipped a beat at his private confession, gulping at the thought of the horror the young men, essentially boys, in her charge must have seen, first with the rise and domination of Al-Qaeda and then, with the descent of the Arab Spring into chaos, Daesh, (or as the British knew them, Islamic State). 

“I will pray for him,” Salam vowed, nodding to her as he left, leaving her wanting to weep again. She had never even considered the existence of a god in her life, but in that moment, such a display of solidarity and thoughtfulness made her so overcome she had to grip the examination cot in front of her. 

Suddenly, she wished that she had been brought up believing in a God. Perhaps then the prospect of life without Charles would not feel so entirely hopeless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love wins, y'all. Have a great day and be kind to one another. Please review with your opinions on my writing, please. I'm always SO THRILLED with long reviews.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter is in memory of all those who have lost their lives in the last few days in the Philippines, Baghdad and, in particular considering the connections that the city has with Qasim in this universe, Kabul, at the hands of Daesh. I cannot fathom that kind of evil and it leaves me with so many questions.
> 
> Writing these chapters has been hard because I feel as though there is a pretty fine line between writing this kind of evil and making sure the story is realistic and writing something that's too hard to read. It's very difficult to write such violence and abuse when you've never experienced it.
> 
> As a result, I have been doing a lot of research. Massive thanks to the Reddit community for all the really insightful, personal threads of soldier's war stories. I also heavily read real people's stories on sexual assault and bullying in the Army and I was shocked to find how common it is. I'm hoping that this story can therefore draw some light to this fact through Molly. (I feel almost defensive over her... I adore Molly).
> 
> The details surrounding Bashira are really fun for me... More will be revealed...
> 
> The complaint process mentioned in this chapter is real. Forever grateful for the British Government website for all the documents they have available.
> 
> References for coming chapters themes:
> 
> – Redress of individual grievances: Guidance to service complaints (JSP 831) | Ministry of Defence | UK Gov  
> – Joseph J. Jordan | Definitions of Article 120, Rape, Sexual Assault  
> – Reddit | How bad was/is the sexual harassment/discrimination you had or are facing? | .com(/)r(/)AskWomen(/)comments(/396k8p/females_of_the_military_how_bad_wasis_the_sexual/?st=j354b4hr&sh=75ae1fe6
> 
> – Reddit | Retired Soldiers What was something that you saw or experienced that you never shared with anyone? .com(/)r(/)AskReddit(/)comments(/)2n269n(/)serious_retired_soldiers_on_reddit_what_was/?st=j354x4s9&sh=096ec603

* * *

** V **

* * *

She fell asleep in her pit after that, having been up since 04:30 hours to avoid the mid-day sun. She was awoken by the sound a voice she had come to dread calling for her from outside the women’s quarters. She lay for a long moment and considered if she could get away with simply pretending he had not awoken her. Flashes of a time when she had considered such a thing on her first tour suddenly came to mind; when Bossman and the rest of Two Section had been indifferent and rude to her because she was new… and a woman. _I suppose we should be grateful you’re not wearing your stilettos,_ Charles _,_ the smug bastard, had said as she had run out of the tent, rifle in hand… but still in her t-shirt and shorts. She had hated them all in that moment, sure she would never fit in with the section because the misogynistic bastards would never let her. 

Thankfully, time had proven her wildly wrong. 

She knew, with a chest aching and seizing with panic, that this same transformation could not happen this time. 

She got up, still wearing her uniform, pulled on her boots and picked up her rifle, rubbing her crusty eyes as she exited the tent with a sudden, hardened resolve. 

“Sir,” she greeted Lawrence, standing to attention at the entrance to the tent but looking right past him so she would not have to meet his eye. 

“James," he greeted, no doubt deliberately using the incorrect name. 

"My name is _Dawes_ , sir." It wasn't, of course, it was James-Dawes on her army paperwork. That being said, no one called her James, since Charles was in the army too and went by that name. Everyone who knew her knew that, including Lawrence, the bastard. 

He gave her a smile that looked menacing in its eagerness, as she stood unnerved as to what he was smiling at. 

“My apologies, Dawsey,” he corrected, smiling wider as though he knew how much more it would irk her. _No,_ she wanted to roar. _You do_ not _get to call me that!_ “Beck was wanting me to check you are coping.”

She had to bite her tongue to keep from sniping at him for that, considering he had considerably contributed to her distress. She could feel her body shaking in his presence, much to her displeasure. She really hoped he didn’t notice. “Yes, sir.” She spoke through gritted teeth. 

“You don’t ever call me Boss,” he observed, squinting in glare of the late afternoon sun. His Scottish accent made her skin crawl, now that she had memories of the icy, snide threats he had made in her ear. “Why?”

She refused to answer, knowing he was setting her up to mention Charles. Instead, she simply stared straight ahead, standing to attention. 

“You call _Him_ it, don’t you?” 

She couldn’t help but dart her eyes to his, knowing without being told that her glare was murderous. Suddenly, she didn’t care if he saw her anger. After all, there was no regulation against _looks._ He was grinning in a manner that made her murderous. Around them, people were going about their business, particularly moving towards the scoff tent, but she was suddenly chronically aware of how alone she felt, even while surrounded. 

Channeling as much of Charles’ professionalism and nonchalance as she possibly could, she attempted to ignore him. “Do you have any direct orders for me, sir?” 

He simply smiled, because they both knew he did not, as though he wanted to say something they both knew he shouldn’t. She felt sick, knowing that he felt powerful after what he had done, that he drew _pleasure_ from her fear. She felt even more sick when she considered that, if she had _only_ had the balls to tell Charles what Lawrence had done, then she could have had the mess reported to a superior ranking officer by now. As it was, telling others while Charles did not know felt like the greatest betrayal. 

Without another word, or waiting to be dismissed, she disappeared back into the woman's quarters; the one place left in the world where she now felt safe: where he could not follow her.

 

The next morning, Molly was moved to have finally received a letter from Qasim, the English professor turned interpreter she now called one of her closest friends. She had formed a strong bond with him incredibly early on in her first tour, as he had been quicker to be empathetic and kind to the new female medic as their interpreter than half of her own British comrades. 

Bashira, the young Afghan girl that Molly had grown to love like a sister on her first tour – having been saved by Two Section from the bomb vest her father had forced on her for engaging with Molly – had been placed in safe, gated school in Kabul, away form her family and all others close to her that had been connected to the Taliban. Thanks to Molly’s contribution of her first tour’s employment money, and some more thereafter, Bashira had been able to remain, finally, in education, watched over from a safe distance by Qasim. However, Kabul was not the beautiful, vibrant place that Qasim had described that it had once been. He himself found he could not go back there; he could not teach there again after the Taliban blew up his house and killed his wife and daughter. The Taliban had viewed his career as treacherous, ‘anti-Islamic’, as he had taught English literature. Therefore, he was filled with sorrow one morning, not six months after she had made him sneak her into Kabul to see Bashira, as he announced to her that he had decided to leave Kabul and move south, though he refused to leave his country all together. She had been on leave between medic training tours when the call came, visiting Charles, her new fiancé.

She had panicked, _‘What about Bashira?!’_ being the first thing she had cried. What he then explained was beyond her expectations: that he had family and his childless sister-in-law had agreed, wholeheartedly, to take Bashira in, if the adoption could be arranged. Qasim would always be a friend to her, but after this offer, she had wept with joy and called him so many incoherent names he had stopped being able to understand her. 

Charles had found her curled up on his bed when he had arrived back from one of the last sessions of rehabilitation on his leg, lost in a haze of tears of joy and long, lost angst. She had not realised how long she had subconsciously been carrying worries for her own life and that of Bashira’s until the burden of the latter was lifted from her. Charles had panicked of course, seeing her in unexplained tears. He may have liked to think he was a tough Army Officer, but he never did too well when she cried.

_“Molly?”_ He had hurried to her, seeming to completely forget the slight limp he usually harboured after rehab sessions and instantly move to cradle her face so he could see her eyes. _“Fuck! Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”_ She had smiled at him then, shaking her head and laughing at the utterly aghast look on his face, suddenly finding it all hysterical. 

_“Qasim rang,”_ she managed, moving to wipe her eyes and sit up. He had settled on the edge of the bed beside her, never letting her hands go, _soppy git. “His sister in law is only bleedin’ takin’ in Bashira!”_

Then it had been Charles’ turn to laugh, more out of disbelief than because anything was funny. Instantly, he had given a bemused frown, a little disgruntled. _“Then why are you crying?! You know how much I hate when you cry, Dawesy!”_

Her humour had suddenly returned to her. _“Uh-oh – watch out, Bath! Bossman’s got a sulk on!”_

He launched at her then, tickling her sides relentlessly, despite the fact he knew how much she hated it, squealing and screaming empty threats of violence. 

_“I feel attacked!”_ she cried, giggling as he finally heeded. 

“I _feel attacked, coming in to a scene like that!”_ he had countered, though he was smirking again, seeming distracted by the sight of her heaving and mussed against his pillows. _“Please promise me never to cry again unless someone dies.”_

 

She had managed to keep that promise, until five days ago, of course. She had heard nothing of Charles, no matter how much she begged Elvis when he rang. 

“I can’t tell you anything, Molly, because we don’t have much of substance, yet.” She had wanted to punch his smug, Northern face, but he wasn’t here, so she settled for her pillow. 

She had barely kept herself together. She hadn’t wanted to cry down the phone to him, she didn’t know him well enough and she didn’t want to cry anymore. That being said, he was one of Charles’ closest friends. 

“Please,” she begged, her voice softer than she ever thought it could be. “When you know, please ring…” Her eyes burned. “He doesn’t deserve to get beheaded on ISIS’ sick YouTube just for trying to save his medic.” The mental image made her gag. “They think we’re all the same; all mindless drones who kill for politicians with no care for their country and their people, but not Charlie; kind, sensitive fucking Charlie. He doesn’t deserve to die––”

“––Molly,” he halted, sounding almost as broken as she was. She instantly silenced. “I’ll ring when we have something, okay? But I can’t give details. I shouldn’t even be discussing anything with you that hasn’t been approved.”

She nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her. “Thank you, Elvis,” she implored. “I’ve been goin’ out of my nut; I thought I was fragged before but this is some new level shit. I can’t even eat, much less sleep.”

He made a sound of understanding and sympathy, but sounded distracted. It was then, with a renewed wave of nauseating guilt, that she remembered she had forgotten Georgie had been taken, too. 

“Oh, Elvis, she’ll be alright,” she assured instantly. “Really, she will. She’s just as tough as Bossman, if not tougher – though you dare never tell him I said so.” The joke fell limp in the tense silence between them. 

“I know,” was all he said. She supposed he felt even more regret and guilt than anyone, considering how he left things with her… and now he may never see her again. 

 

On the third day of their imprisonment, delirious with hunger and thirst, Charles, with Lane not far behind, had been dragged from their makeshift prison and held at gunpoint as they were forced to record the blackmail message that would be sent to the British Army. There had been blood and dust on both their faces and looks of repressed terror in their eyes. One man, with pale, West European looking ethnicity and an auburn beard, had a look in his eye when he looked at Lane that made Charles want to launch at him. In that moment, he already knew what they were planning before they went through with it. 

“Bring the _sharmuta,”_ the white masked man with the auburn beard had called, as the men around them started dragging Lane away. Instantly, Charles felt his adrenaline spike, because he knew that word: _whore_. He instantly flinched toward his friend, a roar of protest escaping his throat before he could stop himself. Around them, it triggered a kind of chaos, as Lane began to scream and the men began shouting in Arabic and jabbing him with their rifles as though he was a wild animal. 

_“No! Please!”_ Her scream sounded agonising, as he knew the hoarse nature of his own throat. “Boss!” she yelled, trying to fight them off. Her tears returned, though this time in terror. “Where are you taking me?! Please don’t let them take me!”

Meanwhile, the pale masked man was laughing, moving towards Charles with the slow, heavy steps of an arrogant killer. He could feel his face twitching with anger as he was forced to still, a handgun now at his forehead. Fear spiked a heavy sweat across his skin, making his scalp prickle, almost as though he was suddenly freezing. 

“Okay, okay! Alright!” he shouted, hands up above his head, as they continued to try and stoke fear and disorientation in him by shouting over him. He held in any pleas for his life, knowing he was walking a fine line between being subservient to stay alive and letting them hurt a soldier in his command. The pale figure stood over him as he remained on his knees. Lane was being hauled away, still screaming and fighting, but he could do little other than stare down the pair of blue eyes before him. 

“Move one more inch and I’ll decorate these walls with your brains,” the stranger said. Charles was stunned to hear that his accent was English; no wonder he had such a fair complexion. His pulse spiked painfully as he tried to focus on his breathing rather than the cold barrel of the gun.

“You’d have one less bargaining tool,” Charles replied, flatly, attempting to disguise his increasing fear. 

The masked Englishman seemed to be somewhat amused by his courage, perhaps respecting him a little for it, as his gun lowered from his head to instead aim at his feet.

“No white man is half the bargaining power of a white _woman,_ ” he warned. “But you know that.”

He did know that, but it did not stop him from fighting for his life along with hers. He had vowed he would not leave Molly, and he intended to keep it. 

They hadn’t had any _time_. 

“I bet you’ve grown quite attached to such a beautiful colleague.” 

Charles did not reply, only staring at him with all the visceral anger he knew he could not allow himself to release. Deep down, he felt smug that they all assumed his attachment to Lane extended past a professional capacity, because they could not have been more wrong to assume they were romantically involved. 

“No?” The Englishman raised his eyebrows, visible above the mark that covered his nose and mouth. He seemed to put two and two together, as he suddenly withdrew something glinting from his pocket. There, hanging from his fingers, were both he and Lane’s rings. “My brother assumes this is ‘M’… But she isn’t, is she?”

Charles blinked hard, feeling whiplashed by the reminder of home. Lane’s screams had quietened somewhat as they had taken her a distance, but he could still hear them. He was suddenly struck with sympathy for all the English foxes that the families of his classmates made a hobby out of hunting when he was younger. He always remembered learning later that such canine descendants have a natural bodily reaction to being surrounded by flapping and chaos which made them lash out to kill until every last source of the flapping had stopped. To a human, of course, when the fox then only ate one of the livestock they killed and left the rest, this looked like senseless slaughter. But now, as he was surrounded by constant stimulation, noise, distress and panic with a stomach more empty than it had ever been, Charles understood.In that moment, had it not been for his duty to protect those in his command first, he too may have lashed out to the point of slaughter, in a desperate, rabid desire for some peace and stillness. 

He did not know why they were so fascinated by his ring; perhaps because it was a simple way of getting under his skin. The masked Englishman smiled; a harrowingly cruel expression. “Well, I suppose you won’t mind if our brothers take her for the whore she is, then.” 

Charles heard a familiar scream that rose goosebumps all over him, but louder, howling as though struck. He naturally flinched and moved to chase the sound without thought. Instantly, he was struck by a thick military-style boot, first to his stomach and then to his face as he was down. 

_“Don’t,”_ he cried, desperate to make her suffering stop even as his own mouth was filled with the metallic tang of blood. “They won’t bargain with you if you’ve hurt her. Please. Take me; let her go.”

It was a hopeless plea, he knew. The Englishman lowered himself down to the dust, seeming to smile at him chillingly. “Why defend a whore if she is not even yours?” 

Charles could feel his mind beginning to suffer the effects of his lack of sustenance, as he could not think past the harrowing sound ringing in his ears, reminding him that he had failed her. Her was her Commanding Officer. He could not let them rape her on his watch while he sat by and did nothing. 

They simply laughed and spat at him, beginning to drag him back towards the makeshift cell alone. He knew he had moments only before he would be too late; they would have their way with her until she was half dead and he would never be able to forgive himself. 

He thought back to Molly and all the times she lectured him about his _‘bleedin’ heroics’_ , his chest aching with sorrow to know that what he was about to do could hurt her most of all. _Forgive me, Molly,_ he pleaded under his breath as he realised there was no other way but to sacrifice himself. 

“Wait!” he suddenly called, formulating a new plan in his head. “I’ll tell you the truth! Stop them and I’ll tell you.”

The masked Englishman paused them, making them bring him back and dump him back on the chair on the hostage video set. He had a large machete in his hand, rotating it in his fingers, as cocked his head in seeming intrigue. 

“Lie to us, try to play us, and I will cut your throat… and hers.”

Charles attempted to regain his breathing, which had become erratic in his distress. _C’mon, James,_ he lectured himself. _Stay alive._

His mouth was so dry, he could feel his lips stick to his teeth as he spoke. "First, let her go."

He channeled his knowing, dominant tone he used often with new recruits. He held the man's eye, hoping to demonstrate his honesty. He was willing to die, he realised with sudden grim resolve, if it meant Lane would would get out of this. He did not want to die, in fact the thought made him want to weep for all he never had chance to say, all he never got to do, but he would do it. As her CO, he would do it. 

The English jihadist narrowed his eyes, evidently weighing up his options. "You're certainly used to getting what you want."

"As are you," he replied without pause. "She cannot give you information further than helping your wounded... but I can." 

This got his attention. He moved instantly to study Charles closer, even releasing a small laugh.“I suspected as much.” His accent was northern, not too dissimilar to Lane’s, Charles noted. He was evidently intrigued, as he hadn't yet moved. One more look at Charles' steely stern expression seemed to remind him that his captive was entirely serious. 

"Bring the girl. Put her back in her chains."

Charles dare not breathe until he saw her again; they dragged her back through towards the makeshift shelter, through the structure in which their video set had been set up. She was visible shaken, her clothes torn, but she was alive and kicking still. Charles at least took heart from that. 

She looked frightened, but mostly bemused at the sight of Charles having become the centre of attention. 

“You’re a solider,” the man clarified, smugly, as she disappeared from sight. He pretended not to hear Lane's shouts and cries as she overheard. She instantly cried that they should take her instead, though one last fleeting look from Charles told her not to give herself up.He knew she would not do so; it would senseless for them both to die when only one must to save the other. 

Charles’ chest pounded as he opened his mouth, momentarily silent, as he knew once he spoke the truth, there would be no turning back. 

“Yes; Commanding Officer of Two Section of her Majesty’s Army.” He said the words with solid pride, despite the fact they could, quite possibly, be his own death sentence. 

The plan captor bowed in mock chivalry, before raising the point of his machete against Charles' throat, the point chillingly cool and sharp enough to already bite his skin. 

"Get the camera," he ordered loudly, first in English then in Arabic. "We have a British soldier, my brothers."

 

 

 

That evening, after another exhausting day, Molly settled down to reply to Qasim’s letter in her pit, but not before having a cuddle with Jackie after a very emotional phone call with Charles' mother.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Molls?” she asked, taking a long, intense look at her friend as though she could sense something else was wrong. 

Molly felt her throat close with the sudden threat of tears, but she swallowed them back instantly. A voice in her head screamed for her to relieve herself of the strain of her silence. 

"Just proper bleedin' fragged," she whispered; it was hardly a lie. "His mum was proper lost; she could barely say any words and I ain't ever seen her like that in two whole years – she even rivals her son in her ability to chinwag!" 

She had found she was suddenly awkward speaking to Alison this time, a feeling she had not had since they first met, thanks to her immense ability to chat and her consuming sweetness. Charles was so much like her in that regard. "I told her SF will find him, because what else could I say? But... what if they don't find him, Jack?" 

She was in Jackie's arms again in an instant. "They will, Molls. Them SF are incredible at their job... and he's strong, your Charles. Strongest man I know by half."

The words were a comfort, since Molly knew she would not say such things if she didn't mean it. However, that did not prevent her own doubt from shouting just as loud. 

The two women jumped at the sound of a hand knocking on the entrance to their quarters, the voice calling for Molly being one that, secretly, left her feeling gutturally unwell. 

"It's Lawrence," she muttered to Jackie, standing in her civvies and walking out to answer him. At least he could do nothing while the other women were here. 

Standing to attention, she gritted her teeth against her body's fear. 

"Stand easy, Dawesy."

"Sir." The Scottish accent made her skin crawl, so she barely relaxed as she should have. He was smiling, as though he hadn't a care in the world. 

"If you'll follow me, I believe we may have new intel of great interest to you."

Her gut told her there was no bleedin' hell's chance she should follow him anywhere, especially not in the dark... but her hopes rose at his words, as though her fears were suddenly nothing. 

"From Al Shabaab?!" 

He said nothing but raised his eyebrows, turn on his heel and move off. Instantly, she scrabbled back inside to retrieve her rifle, intent on following. Jackie's gaze as she rushed was one of first surprise, then puzzlement and questioning. However, Molly was too high on adrenaline to think, much less communicate. She could feel her pulse in her throat, overflowing her with jitters. 

She heard Jackie calling out for her, asking where she was off to, but she moved off quickly into the night to follow him. It was stupid to do so, but she suddenly felt as though none of it mattered. She needed to know if Charles was alive. 

However, instead of leading her to the Ops tent, he lead her down the darkened lane where the shitters were. Instantly, she couldn't breathe as she was choked by the memories of him threatening her, pushing himself inside her against her will, holding her against the metal until she had finger shaped bruises on her behind, a hand clamped over her mouth. She could still remember the pain so vividly that it made her want to vomit; her vagina still burned when she now went for a wee. After it had happened, she had instantly hidden in the toilets, praying for the bleeding to stop. When it had, there hadn't been much, she had thanked the universe and snuck back into her pit before anyone could spot her, not that the copper stains of blood could be seen on her black shorts if they had. 

As a medic, she had instinctively risen at first light and tested herself for any infections, and, despite the fact it would be far too early to tell, for pregnancy too. All tests had come back negative, as she expected. She had also swabbed under her nails and even inside herself, collating as much DNA as she could in that hope that it would be admissible once she reported him. She put each swab in its own test tube and bagged them all in containment bags from her medical kit, hiding them in her drinking flask which she then found a hiding place for in the back of the medics communal mini fridge. No one could say she had not tried then, at least. She knew such cases without evidence could be heavily difficult to prove.

Each day, like clockwork, she had tested herself in private. Similarly, each day since he was taken, like clockwork, she had begun writing daily letters to Charles. That way, at least she was telling him the truth in some form, even if she she were never to actually speak to him again. 

"Look at you, so eager," Captain Lawrence drawled beside her, crowding her once again in the dark shadows. 

"No!" She warned, fiercely in a low voice. "Don't you _touch me!_ You said you had intel—You _said—!"_

_"—_ You really thought your CO would be allowed to pass on such intel to a _Lance-Corporal_ who's _married_ to the hostage?" 

Molly could feel her body shaking both with fury and fear, as her entire body coiled for fight. She would not give in, not again. She would fight this time because this time, she had nothing to lose. 

"Get yo' fucking _slimey,_ Scottish hands _off me!"_ She struggled hard, hating herself when a whimper of panic and pain escaped her when his hands dug into her flesh. 

He was laughing at her, his hands grabbing at her crotch again, when suddenly he froze in his place. A voice behind them made him jump backward. 

"Back away, Sir." 

It was Jackie's voice, hard and stern as Lawrence turned to face her. Molly was instantly elated with a kind of heady concoction of panic and relief, wanting to scream at the sight of her friend. However, she suddenly filled with fear for her friend when she realised Jackie was holding up her rifle, aiming at their CO with no look of regret. 

"Corporal Ellis," he greeted, as though she were not threatening him with a deadly weapon. "How nice of you to join us. I was just explaining to Dawesy why seeking comfort in her CO will not work a second time."

Molly's chin hit the floor at his audacity. He had warned her he would take such a defence, should she have reported him; after all, she had an almost-affair with her CO once before. What such an arrogant twat would never understand, of course, is that what happened between herself and Charles could never be replicated, could never happen twice. She still hadn't the foggiest how it had managed to happen once! 

One look from Molly and Jackie could see that their Captain's excuse was a lie. She knew her friends' intense, unprecedented affection for her husband; she had witnessed these affections grow and evolve into a beautifully tender and admirable marriage. There was no doubt in Jackie Ellis' mind that her friend would never consider betraying Charles James, not even as a solider, much less as a wife. 

"Don't you _dare_ try to group yourself with such a _honourable_ Captain!" Jackie growled, never once lowering her gun. With a deep breath, however, she dragged her emotions back to remind herself of protocol. "Captain Lawrence, I am hereby informing you that Lance-Corporal Dawes and myself will be submitting a statement of complaint to the SO immediately senior to yourself under Article 120, sexual assault and or misconduct, of the Military Criminal Offences Act, who will then inform the Military Police. Step away from your subordinate before you make things worse for yourself."

Molly was frozen, watching the arrogance in his expression only dissipate a fraction, unnerved as to why he was still so confident. Perhaps he was simply delusional, she considered... or perhaps he truly thought his slander of her had legs. She felt sick at the prospect of finding out. 

"Molly!" Jackie called softly, as though talking to a child, jolting her from her paralysis. "I think it's best we go and wake Captain Lawrence's CO, don't you?" 

It was only then that Molly realised that in his arrogance, Lawrence hadn't remembered his rifle, as was regulation when outside on the base. No wonder he had been somewhat obedient at the sight of the barrel of Jackie's pointed at him. 

He laughed somewhat, as though he did not believe her words were genuine, which made Molly's steps away from him all the more determined. With each step, she suddenly felt stronger, like she was leaving the mess he had made her in the shadows. 

"I look forward to bringing you up on a charge for threatening a superior ranking officer, Ellis," he trailed after them. They were all being quiet, none wanting to make a scene, but at this threat, which seemed hollow at best considering the allegations he would face with an eyewitness on her side, Molly heard her friend openly laugh, falling into step behind her once Molly was a safe distance away. 

Feeling sudden immense pride for her friend, Molly turned on her heel, walking backward and flashing the man who assaulted her a look of arrogant confidence she remembered Charles used to use on her, pretending to look concerned and confused. "That's curious, _sir_..." In such moments, she could swear she could almost channel Charles' confidence.Perhaps that would be his ultimate legacy in her life, before even love. Pure, unwavering _belief._ "'Cuz I din' see nothing."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Slowly and surely, it's coming, y'all. Don't you worry.
> 
> Thank you so very much for all your reviews. It means so much to me that you're all so eager.
> 
> I have one correction I'd like to make. I mistakenly wrote that Charles was a Major in the earlier chapters, but I've realised the reason BBC Series 2 never made Charles a Major is simply because it would mean he wouldn't be out in the field with Two Section, because that's a Captain's role.
> 
> As a result, I've corrected my mistake and Charles is a Captain again. Hope this isn't confusing for anyone.
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter was heavily inspired by Dylan Thomas' famous poem, 'The Sunset Poem' from 'Under Milk Wood' Prose, read by Smurf and CJ in OG Series 1... because it says a poignant thing or two about life and death.
> 
> It's also a heavy exploration into the morals of Britain's foreign policy in the Middle East. Take from it what you will.
> 
> Trigger warning: slight references to rape. (Poor Molly).

 

* * *

  **VI**

* * *

 "I've failed." 

Charles had been sat, staring into nothing for so long her could no longer feel his behind. The constant presence of dust and dirt made him cough now and made his eyes weep aggressively. Beside him, Lane was a shell of herself, though her fight was still present in her eyes, which made him proud. "I failed all of you."

“That's not true, sir!” 

Their speech was now just as slow as it was croaked, due to dehydration but also due to exhaustion. They hadn’t been allowed to sleep, with militants clattering their weapons on the bars every time they almost drifted off.

He hadn't entirely been talking to Lane. If he was honest, he had forgotten she was even there, so much was the near-hallucinogenic haze that had descended over in his thoughts. It had been mere hours since they had been forced to record hostage videos in front of the Al Shabaab's black flag and, while he knew that the Army would be working like hell fire to track them, he couldn't stop hoping that Molly would never see it. He would hate for that to be the last version of him that she saw. 

"Isn't it?" he croaked, tears leaking from his eyes. His entire body felt so exhausted, aching in every single bone and muscle, as he could practically feel his gut beginning to eat itself. "They assaulted a soldier in my charge and I couldn't stop them."

"You gave yourself up to stop them!" she admonished, her voice suddenly a lot stronger. "They're going to behead you! They _beat_ you! That don' sound like anything other than bloody brave to me." 

Despite her belief, he felt little appeasement. All he could see was the disappointment he would cause when he did not come home. 

"How could you do that, sir?" she whispered. "Respectfully, I can't go home without you." 

"You will!" he replied forcefully, instantly moving enough to look at her as sternly as he could. "You _will_ make it out of here and you'll go home to Jamie and Two Section and you'll keep the cockwombles in line for me." He could hear his own voice wavering, though it now had nothing to do with his dwindling physical state. "And be there for Molly for both of us."

"Sir! Please don't tell me you've given up?! They'll come, sir! They've had the video for hours now – they must have."

He closed his eyes as he attempted to centre himself in the face of her optimism. He too had possessed an unwavering belief in the British Army when he had been in her shoes: a young Lance Corporal with no previous trauma to weaken resolve. It made him ashamed, to realise how far the traumas of war had changed him. Once upon a time, he would have scoffed in the face of a soldier who had given up as readily as he felt himself doing now, but, as he often repeated to his Section, war changed people unlike any other evil. 

"They'll have it," he agreed softly, moving back to sit against the wall, groaning at the pain that raced through him. "But whether they find us with it alone is a lot more questionable, Lane." 

"All the same, sir, you can't just accept defeat—" 

"—What else would you suggest I do, Lane?!" he sniped harshly. It would have been a shout if it were not for the painful nature of his throat. "They were going to fucking rape you – I couldn't let that happen knowing there was something left I could do! I made a choice and now I'm trying to make my _peace_ with it." His lips, painfully cracked, were suddenly wet and he tasted salt. He was so chronically thirsty that he wondered how on earth he managed to still produce tears. Usually, he would be utterly aghast at such displays of emotion in front of one of his men, but after days of hunger, beatings and desperate thirst, such conventions fell away into insignificance. His breathing shuddered, as though there was a massive weight on his chest. " _Please_ let me." 

–x–

The walls weren't so much closing in as crumbling altogether, or at least that's how it felt. Molly had no protection left. Her husband, her greatest friend, could be dead any day, beheaded by evil in the name of some God she knew diddly-squat about. Her family, Two Section, were 4,897 miles away and her Army, as her family seemed insistent on calling it, had become her jury. 

Her courage had all but dissolved as she had stood outside Major Beck's private quarters, feeling the gravity of what she had been about to do.If it had not been for Jackie's hand around hers, she was sure she wouldn't have been able to go through with it. 

"How did you know?" The question was simple enough, but almost a moot one, not that any of that mattered now. 

"I didn't," she said, "until I saw that look on your face when I followed you." 

Beck had been as shocked as he was prompt, to his credit. He instantly sent out men to formally arrest Captain Lawrence for sexual assault, pending a formal submission of a complaint and a later court marshal.He was to be sent home immediately on suspension while the military police carried out their investigation, which left Molly feeling so relieved she felt hollow. Beck assured that no one would know who the allegation had come from, aside from those superior who may need to, and as she wrote out her official letter of complaint, he gave a deeply troubled frown. 

"Does James...?" 

"No, sir," she replied, wishing her voice had not shaken so. Inwardly, she was ashamed. _I didn't have the balls to tell him, sir._

"Yes, well... That's probably for the best.The poor man will have enough to contend with at the moment... As do you."

She had smiled sadly at the man, a somewhat gentle but frank boss by Army standards. She had looked down at her statement, at the scrawl of her handwriting, and taken a deep breath, intent on casting away the dark turn her thoughts had taken.Beck halted as she moved to stand to attention. 

"I do, as it happens, have something else concerning you that I had intended toinform you of, Dawes." 

Terror instantly choked her, feeling like ice was suddenly running through her veins rather than blood. She focussed on the wrinkles around the man's eyes, counting them to keep from needing to sit. "What, sir?! Is it Charles—?"

"—Not to panic, Dawes. It's... a mixed development."

_"Mixed,_ sir?" Molly was so emotional exhausted, she could barely comprehend what this could mean. "I'm not sure I have the floggiest what you mean, sir."

He lead her to the Ops tent then from the private administration tent they had been occupying and she was shocked to find it was a hive of activity. Bodies moved frantically, British, ANA and Special Forces, around maps and computer screens. The board that usually contained the layout of minefields was instead covered in maps she had not seen before and photographs of numerous men. She saluted to the other ranking officer before her, attempting to look more alert than she felt. 

"We have received contact from the captors," Beck divulged, moving towards the laptop in front of him. "They sent it to us via our contacts at Al Jazeera... which does mean, regrettably, that news will most likely be with the western media by daybreak."

Molly could feel her heartbeat in her entire body as she stared at the men, unsure how to respond. Before her, one began operating the laptop, opening up a video file. 

"While I would not normally recommend showing such footage to a Captain's next of kin... the media will soon have it. There is not much use in keeping it from you if it'll be on YouTube by morning." Beck's voice was matter-of-fact, but gravely sad. "That is, if you _want_ to see it?" 

For a moment, she was conflicted. If it was a beheading video, she would have the image of her being murdered burned into her retina until the day she died, most likely driving her to madness with the horror of it. Similarly, even if it was a hostage video only, the image would leave her with no hope of sleeping until he was safe.

She quickly came to the conclusion however that watching his struggle was the least she could do, since Charles' own torture most likely dwarfed her emotional strife a thousand times. 

Therefore, she quietly agreed and clenched her shaking fists as they moved to press play... and just like that here he was. 

She didn't hear the choking noise of shock she made, much less bother to move wipe the first heavy tear, as the sight that greeted her was her husband's eyes. It seemed he was looking right at her, staring down the lens as though it were the barrel of a gun. He was hurt, bloodied, bleeding from his mouth, hairline and even his nose and his face looked sallow. Angry looking bags marred the underneath of his eyes, which were bloodshot and lined with red. His curls, that she had always loved so much, were matted on his head and covered in a thick layer of moon dust much like that one could find in Afghan. She wanted so much to look away, his eyes were filled with such fury and longing it made her paralyse with fear for him, but she found she could not. 

After the captors paraded their bollocks of victory in introduction, they thrust a newspaper into his hands. He was sat, a black Al Shabaab flag his only backdrop, with his hands tied.As he began to speak, his beautiful, usually so very powerful, voice becoming the mouthpiece for evil, she felt as though she might be sick. 

"My name is Captain Charles James and I am a British citizen and soldier for the British Army. I am, thanks to the interference of my government and my country in Kenya, now being held by Al Shabaab, along with a medic, Georgie Lane."

Molly's heart was hammering so loud, she could barely hear him croaking voice. "They know he's a soldier!" she gasped to herself, folding her arms around herself. 

"We found his dog tags hidden in the abandoned ambulance, along with Lane's, so we are unsure what gave him away," Captain Azizi informed her, his expression grave. He had been here when the base had been Bastion, on her first tour. She knew he had been fond of Charles. 

On screen, Charles held up the newspaper to prove the date and authenticity of the video before coughing and continuing. "Release all Al Shabaab fighters held by allied forces or—" He haltered and that is when Molly saw it: the undeniable realisation that the end was coming. She had seen such absolution in his eyes before, when they had both mistaken thunder for a fatal blast and when he had been bleeding out on that Afghan bridge. He had cried out for her then, her fist in his abdomen as he had grabbed at her to get her attention. He had cried her first name twice, which he had never spoken before that moment, eyes pinched with agony and glassy with a kind of acceptance that could only ever be possessed by a dying man. 

She was suddenly in desperate need for something to hold onto, feeling her knees shaking beneath her combats as her hand darted out to grab the edge of the table. 

"Or—" He faltered, the undeniable tone of panic and sorrow in his voice, along with a hint of tears he held back. An aggressive Arabic order could be heard from behind the camera and Molly was horrified as she watched her husband, a man she herself always credited to being so calm and _sure,_ violently flinch. "Or I will executed at sundown... in the name of Al Shabaab's fight for Allah and the Caliph." 

All the walls she had once had around her, built out of love and service and comradeship, crumbled the day her body was taken against its will. 

With this final blow to her founding pillar, the very ground she walked on felt as though it was giving way too, sinking from beneath her feet. Her senses were now debunked, as she perceived nothing, no sights or sounds or touch, and felt nothing other than panic. Her voice was whispering of its own accord, the continuous repetition entirely without her knowledge. 

" _O let us see another day..."_

She fled the Ops tent somehow, completely unaware of once all important regulations. 

_"Bless us all this night, I pray..."_

With such obliterating desolation and loneliness, it was a wonder she made it back to her pit at all. 

_"And to the sun we all will bow..."_

There, as Jackie cradled her like she used to cradle her baby brother, her senses began to return. As she struggled to breathe or form a single coherent thought, she found herself repeating words she did had not known she remembered; foreign and poetic verse that had taken root somewhere when she was in a green field in Newport, long ago; memories of a past life, of idealism and tragedy and 'perfect'. They were fragments of what was... and what now may never be again. 

_"And say, good-bye – but just for now..."_

–x–

Georgie was silent for a long time. Then, she sighed with a heavy resignation and when she did speak, her own voice was tearful again – this time as though in hopelessness. "How can I _possibly...?"_ She halted herself as she dragged in another breath. "If I go home without you, Boss, how could I ever, _ever_ face her?!"

With a deeply furrowed brow and a rigid spine, Charles could feel his very skeleton shaking as he attempted to swallow back the tidal waves of gut-wrenching sorrow that threatened to swamp him. Memories of Molly were now impossible to ignore, as she was all he seemed to have left to anchor himself to. Desperate hunger and stifling despair left his skull feeling at though it were made of lead. 

"I told you," he replied, hastily trying to wipe his eyes, but the tears he banished were instantly replaced with more. "She won't blame anyone more than she'll blame herself," he sighed, regrettably. "And me." 

Georgie watched her boss' face crumple, engulfed in an emotion which he could clearly barely contain. Regarding him, she considered how much the expression looked like one of grief _._

"I can't stop seeing her face," he heaved, pulling at his tangled curls and snuffling. "I vowed that I wanted her to be last thing I see, on our first tour. But now..." 

Georgie was uncomfortable, both for being unable to comfort him, but also because she was suddenly chronically aware of the inadequacies of her own relationship. She wasn't sure Jamie had ever declared a vow to her over anything. 

"I never told her," he mumbled introspectively, "how much I loved her – well, I did, I tried, but I can't help feeling as though it wasn't enough. I should have told her everyday, every time she cackled or called me a Rupert for deliberately saying something she would not entirely understand." Somehow, he managed to smile. "Tell Jamie as much as you can when you return, Lane," he instructed firmly, only to raise his eyebrow at her in a weak attempt at humour. "That is, if you mean it."

"Why wouldn't I _'mean it'?!"_ she challenged hotly. "If y'meaning I still love Elvis, you can, _respectfully_ of course, fuck off, sir."

Somehow, he found he could not quash the laughter that bubbled from him; the effect of sudden hilarity heady and exhausting in equal measure. "Quite right, Lane. Apologies."

After their laughter died, there was a long, unquantifiable period of quiet between them, as they had seemingly been left simply to starve by their captors, only tormented every few hours to prevent sleep. As she stared into the dusty haze of the steaming open desert air, Georgie found herself humming in her increased exhaustion and delirium. It wasn't until Charles heaved out a heavy sigh of dejection that she realised what the song was: none other than his well known favourite. 

"Your wedding song," she whispered. 

"Yes." When she looked over, he was smiling, no more new tears on his cheeks. "I wept like a baby after they sang that for me," he divulged wistfully, thinking back to one of his most precious memories as he and his new wife had found solace and grounding in one another in the corridor. Hidden from the rest of the world, they had grappled with their immense good fortune in finding a kindred spirit in one another; therarest kind of treasure in life for which wars were fought and minds were lost. 

"Every soldier has a weakness, sir." 

"So, why is it that mine always feel so detrimental?" he wondered aloud. 

"P'raps that's just the price we pay for the ultimate kind of love."

Struck with force by her statement, he recalled the husband he had become the second time. Instead of the military husband who outgrew his civilian wife as he had been, he had become a man lucky enough to be in a marriage of equals, despite his superior position. That being said, he had become wrapped up in an intense need to protect Molly, despite the fact she was a woman whom, simply on principle, refused to be protected. Still though, he could not have been more insistent to do so. He could not help himself; puffing his chest when they had run into her 'cock-face' ex – Molly's words, not his – and standing up for her when all those rigid and conventional at his parents Christmas drinks tried to belittle her.

It was true: they all had weaknesses. 

Before his fifth tour, by which time he had lost his first wife, if someone had asked him if he had weaknesses, he would have said that he only had one.

His thoughtful and beautiful son had been an awakening of a very universal kind of love: a steadfast, enduring and constant kind of admiration simply at his boy's ability to grow and learn and thrive. However, with the rollercoaster of his fifth tour, Molly awoke in him a whole new, much more unique kind of love, one so intensely fervent and all-consuming that it had left him with a brand new kind of weakness, too. 

He had once been a stickler for the rules, but Molly instilled in him an allegiance that had grown to rival any other.

He would have built the world for Sam, out of an enduring, unchanging love and sense of parental duty. But for Molly, his love was much more volatile. He knew, as he looked out into the wilderness, that he would tear down whole kingdoms if they took her from him. 

The darkness of the world made him afraid. Yes, mostly for Sam and what kind of place it will be for him to grow up into, but in the immediate, it mostly made him terrified for Molly. Not that he would ever usually admit it, but this silence terror often made him arrogant, storming around in an often patriarchal and territorial manner whenever he felt threatened. It made him stubborn and unable to admit he was wrong. But mostly, it made him want to cling to those he loved, lock them away and never let them go. He never admitted it to her aloud, but saying goodbye to Molly as she went off to war had been one of the hardest things he was sure he would ever do. 

"I booked a surprise trip to visit Bashira for after we both got back; she lives in Oman now. I have always loved to see the joy on her face when she's with that girl." He wheezed, choking on desert dust. "I never told her." He paused, unable to divert his thoughts away from imagining Molly's despair, should he never return. "It used to do my head in that she couldn't let things go. _God_ , I was so blinded by fear of losing her, I couldn't see that she was right not to. It _was_ our place to care about each small cog, otherwise how else would we have any hope of making the greater war zone any better?" 

Georgie's voice was sure where his was hollow. "She always says she wishes she could live out there – in Afghan I mean."

"She loves it, especially up in the mountains," he agreed wistfully. "If only there could be peace in Afghan; I'd build her a house up there in a heartbeat if I could." Memories flashed of a very green Private Dawes beside him at the mountain CP as she had chatted away about the land's beauty into his ear, made him ache. "I'd have moved heaven and earth to make her happy."

"She was happy, sir," Georgie assured sadly. "She told me all the time."

For this, he was eternally relieved. They may have had no time, but at least the tiny amount they did have had eventually been everything he hoped it would be, for both of them. "And now, I can only hope she can find happiness without me."

–x–

Molly barely slept at all, haunted by the look of resolution and foreboding in Charles' eyes. At daybreak, she rose, accepting she would never find rest now, and was checked over officially by Jackie for a medical report regarding her assault.It was comforting for it to be carried out by Jackie, but all the same, it made her eyes burn with tears of shame as her bruising was photographed and vagina was swabbed and inspected for injury. 

"Are you in pain?" Jackie asked as she covered her friend back up. "You seem to have some heavy bruising and swelling up there, but thankfully very little tearing. It should heal on its own, but just be careful not to overdo it." 

Molly gave her the swabs she had taken from the mini fridge silently before re-dressing and accepting the big hug she offered. 

"You'll be alright, Moll," her friend whispered again her ear, leaving her gripping onto Jackie for dear life to keep the hug going longer. 

"I'm so sorry I didn't tell you," she whispered, bowing her head into Jackie's shoulder. "I just can't seem to... How will I tell—?" 

Suddenly, it was a though she had momentarily forgotten that Charles wasn't just a phone call away. The realisation was a like a blow to the chest and she instantly let the words drop. Jackie looked undeterred. 

"He will understand. The truth is all that matters." 

Molly liked to think that that were true, but doubt had taken seed in her mind and was spreading like a virus. As she wiped her eyes, intent on beginning her day despite the fact it was only just 04:30 hours, she was met by Beck, who had a surprising order for her. 

"You want to send me on R&R, sir?" 

"Decompression," he corrected, squinting in the early morning sun. "The Army does have a policy of compassion, Dawes, and if ever it should be implemented, I think it's safe to say, it is now."

Molly felt instantly panicked; the last thing she wanted was to be sent back to England without Charles, where his terrified, gaunt face would be plastered on every screen while she had nothing to do but sit and slowly go mad. 

"I can't, sir!" she breathed instantly, the words flying from her mouth at lightening speed. "I can't go home, not while—" She found she could not even say it. "I'll be alright now Captain Lawrence has gone, sir— _and_ what about my trainees, sir?!" 

His hands were gesturing for her to calm even before he managed to cut her off. "Dawes! Dawes – you misunderstand. I want to send you for decompression in _Kenya..."_ Molly knew her expression must have been one of bemusement, as she tried to grapple with what he was suggesting, as his words were sad slowly, interspersed with pauses, as though she might struggle to understand. "With Two Section," he clarified, just in case she had not made the connection. She had, of course, but she had dare not let herself believe it. "Their tour is drawing to a close prematurely, but only by a week – what with the crisis surrounding Captain James and Lane." 

Molly could feel her heart beginning to race, but for the first time in a week, it was triggered by the heady thrill of anticipation rather than terror and panic. Looking into Beck's face, she could he was tired, but mostly that he was pleased to be the barer of good news at this difficult time. 

"You are to report to Corporal Kinders upon arrival in Mombasa, who will escort you to the hotel, from which you will officially be on compassionate leave." Molly was surprised she could even hear him over the rushing of blood in her ears. "After decompression, your complaint of redress SO will be in contact with you regarding the investigation surrounding Captain Lawrence, along with the Police, of course. You will also need to report to your allocated psychologist, who can assess the extent to which these events may have affected you. Tell them everything, Dawes, and do not hold back." His voice had lowered upon broaching this subject, as around them people were going about their business with the start of another day. "Transport will arrive in an hour to take you to the hanger." 

"Yes, sir," she acknowledged, gritting her teeth to push back all her emotions. Giving him a grateful smile, which he returned, she suddenly felt a fraction lighter. In his kind expression, she recognised familiar glimmers of a sweet disposition much like that Charles' possessed... as much as he liked to pretend he did not. "Thank you, sir."

"No need for thanks, Dawes," he replied, indicating for her to stand to attention as he moved to leave. "Your courageous behaviour is a testament to the soldier you are – well done."

She could not look him in the eye as he said it, because she knew she would find pity there and she did not want to be pitied. But, mostly, she struggled to understand how anything could feel like a victory while Charles' life still hung in the balance. 

–x–

The anticipation was heady as the military plane landed; her hands were clammy and her mouth dry in as much anxiety as excitement. It had been a long while since she had been able to spend time with Two Section and usually she did so without Charles, simply because him being their Boss still made certain types of socialising not entirely appropriate. This time though, she would have to face them in the knowledge that they all felt a loss, one so paramount and detrimental to their team that she was not entirely sure she would recognise the personalities she might find in that hotel. 

At the sight of Eggy waiting for her, she was so gutturally relieved to see another familiar face that she had to remind herself she was still in uniform, as she almost dropped her kit and threw herself at her friend. His eyes were round with an unspoken sadness and his jaw had been set with worry, but even he managed to crack a smile as she stepped into the hanger and stood to attention.She now found she was struggling to see clearly as her vision and warped misted with developing tears, but she smiled all the same. As he companied her to the armoured vehicle, he tried to offer small talk, but they could both feel it was useless. 

"I tried to tell him not to go," he said gravely, fidgeting with his beret. 

Instantly, she found herself laughing. "You thought you'd tell the Bossman what to do, did ya?" she teased, though her chest never stopped aching with an agony she so desperately tried to pretend was not there. "I'm sure that went down well."

Eggy, not the kind for as many jokes as she was, looked rigid and uncomfortable. He evidently took on some of the blame, despite the fact they both knew, as someone under Captain James' charge, there was nothing he could have done is the tossed decided to be a hero. 

As they arrived at the hotel, protected both at the gates and at the door by Kenyan National Army with guns, Molly felt her chest tighten even more. 

"I didn't tell them you were comin'," Eggy said as he helped her pull her kit from the vehicle. "Thought it might be a nice surprise for 'em." 

All Molly could do was nod, as she made her way through the shining white lobby and towards the room indicated on the key that had been placed in her hand. She found her gaze was trained on the floor in front of her as she walked, as though she did not want to catch the eye of anyone who may pass in case they knew her. She was not sure why, but the moment she was alone in her hotel room, she felt more at peace. Strange, considering she had spent the last week avoiding being alone with her thoughts at all costs.Perhaps it was simply that if she faced Two Section, her dearest friends, she would have to face not only their sadness, but also her own despair, when there was a inescapable six foot absence amongst them where Charles should be. 

Instead, as slowly as she should, she unpacked her bergen, meticulously folding each item of clothing in squares like Charles always did. (He had lectured her on her folding skills to the point she had found herself picking up his technique just to shut him up).Then, she stripped of her uniform and stood before the bathroom mirror. 

She was hot and sweaty, dusty and in desperate need of a shower, but what most struck her about her reflection, which she had not seen properly in a long while being on a base in Afghan, was how tired she looked, and gaunt too.It was only then that she realised how little she had eaten, not only since the assault but also, and most notable, since the taking of Charles. Perhaps it was trauma, perhaps it was a kind of grief; either way, Molly simply could not muster the will to care. Despite the fact Charles would lecture her into next week, she had not the energy to worry about herself with the amount she was currently spending worrying about him... and trying not to fall apart. 

Angry hand print bruises, now beginning to fade, still marred her thighs and she felt physically sick as she looked at them, realising she would not be able to strip down into a swimsuit for a while, not that she would have anyway. 

All that was left on her body was the cord that held her wedding and engagement rings around her neck. It felt heavy as she stared at it, as though the rings and their significance had tripled. Slowly, she slipped the cord off and slipped the rings back in their place on her left hand.

As she stepped into the shower, the water drumming against her back and soaking her hair, she watched the grime and dust of Afghan swirl and disappear down the drain, somewhat mesmerised by it. Her legs, desperately in need of a shave and moisturising, ached and her shoulder was sour, but mostly all she could still feel the chafe and burn of her most private anatomy under the hot water. It made her eyes burn with shame as she felt it, a reminder of how a brute of a man had decided to brand her against her will, like a possession, marking her forevermore as 'the girl who was raped'. No longer would she be 'That medic that saved Smurf' or even 'That medic who married her Captain'. Now she would be: 'that girl who was raped by her boss... and reported him'. 

Finding herself thumbing the rings, she could feel the engraving, delicate and secret, beneath her touch. 

_I told you I wouldn't always be your boss...but let's face it, I was already yours. C._

The funny thing had been that these poignant words had been put on the ring long before their wedding day, and therefore long before she had said something very similar tearfully as they had hidden away from their own reception. She hadn't even noticed the engraving until that evening. They had been lounging in their honeymoon suite, discussing the humour in what she had chosen to engrave on his ring and how utterly bizarre their rings would seem out of context to their great-grandchildren some day. 

"You think about that?" she had asked softly as she brushed her hair with a beautiful view of Bath before her. Turning, she had found an even more beautiful view in their bed in the form of her new husband, nude as the day he was born and lounging against the head board. 

"Of course I do, Dawesy." He'd pulled her back to him somewhat ungracefully before grasping her hand to kiss it, once like he had on their first date and again over her ring. "I always have been a little previous, have I not?" 

In the loud drum of the shower drowning out the world, she realised this was the first time in weeks she had been entirely alone. In a panic, as she tried her best to recall that heavenly memory, she suddenly found she could not picture him with the detail she once had memorised. Had it really been so long since she had seen him that she could not remember whether his cowlick curled to the left or the right? Or whether his crooked smirk curled this way or that? On their wedding night, they had spoken at great length of the life they hoped they would have together, masking in the naive and hopeless romance of the unknown, as long as they had each other. Leaning her forehead against the tiles, the tears that began falling merged with the hot water as it curled pathways down her face. They had even spoken of having children, after she had grown war weary and wanted to settle. She had pretended not to keen on the idea and so had he, but now she yearned for that moment back again, just so she could leap at the opportunity with open arms. 

She had not wanted to admit it to herself because she was shit scared into next week at the idea of being a mum, but she did want to have Charles' baby. She wanted to hold a piece of him in her arms even when he was not there. She wanted to nurture something that they made and watch them grow into a little version of him, just like Sam was. She wanted to be so irreversibly connected to him. She craved such intimacy, such ties of family.

Now, all that would be an impossibility. 

A alien sound of despair met her ears and it was only after a long moment she realised it had come from her. The long wail of a sob was a kind of sadness she had never exhibited before, not even when she lost Smurf before her eyes. She clasped a hand over her mouth in the hope of curbing it, of pushing her desolation back into the metaphorical box she had been trying to push under metaphorical stairs. 

Somehow, she ended up leaning against the tiled wall with her head on her knees, finally letting herself give up the effort of looking 'okay', just for a little while. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I cannot thank you all enough for all the lovely long reviews I got after putting the chapter up yesterday. It was hard to write, but this was never harder. Yes, this are desolate, but the light at the end of the tunnel is here, my friends.
> 
> Please do keep up the reviews! They made me so thrilled! Especially the long ones.
> 
> Massive thank you to Reddit for war stories and to one of my favourite Nottingham bands, London Grammar, for all the inspirational sounds while I'm writing. (They were also about 80% of the OG Series 1 soundtrack, for those of you who didn't know. Check them out if you like soundtrack-esque Roxy music. They're great).

_"Every morning when I wake,_   
_Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,_   
_O please do keep Thy lovely eye_   
_On all poor creatures born to die_

_And every evening at sun-down_   
_I ask a blessing on the town,_   
_For whether we last the night or no_   
_I'm sure is always touch-and-go._

_We are not wholly bad or good_   
_Who live our lives under Milk Wood,_   
_And Thou, I know, wilt be the first_   
_To see our best side, not our worst._

_O let us see another day!_   
_Bless us all this night, I pray,_   
_And to the sun we all will bow_   
_And say, good-bye – but just for now!"_

–– **Eli Jenkins' Prayer** from _Under Milk Wood_ , by **Dylan Thomas**

* * *

 

** VII **

* * *

As she made her way out to the beach later, she was dressed in board shorts and one of Charles' old University of St. Andrews t-shirts. She usually tied it at the waist so it didn't drown her so much, but today she felt liberated by how it swapped her, reminding her of her husband's size and strength, while also hiding her body from the world. In her current state, she never wanted anyone to see her bare skin ever again.

By the time she psyched herself up enough to face Two Section, she felt somewhat numb, having cried out what felt like her enough body weight in tears. Predictably, she heard the group's loud voices and banter before she even caught sight of them. 

"I'm trying to tell a story!" she heard Baz strop, his classic line raising an unexpected grin on her lips.

"Yeah, well, maybe that's why no one's listening, Baz, mate," she heard Brains chuckle.

Creeping towards where they were sitting around a beach campfire, it was Brains that saw her first. He squinted in the afternoon sunlight, evidently doubting it was her. She tried to grin at him, but the expression felt forced and her chin wobbled. 

"Molly?!" he yelled, triggering each of the familiar faces to whip round to look for her. "Holy shitballs, lads! It's Molly!"

"Alright, cockwombles!" she replied, unable to help herself. She had always hidden behind humour after all. 

They all held looks of disbelief as they raced towards her with the bounce and vigour of little boys, impacting into her in a rather painful group hug. Instantly, she had to bite back more emotion, instantly frustrating herself. Hadn't she cried enough already?! 

"What are you doin' here, Molls?! How'd you swing that one?!" Baz cried, still wearing a ridiculous hat like the last time she had seen him. 

"Maybe because her husband is the Boss, Baz," Fingers reminded through gritted teeth, as though indicating for Baz to be quiet. She laughed, sniffing hard and shaking her head, already sensing what she had most hoped would not happen, as they were not sure how to cope around her. 

"It's alright, Baz," she assured softly, finishing hugging each of them, squeezing and swaying with the vigour of each embrace. "Beck sent me on leave, you know, since the Bossman decided to be a hero."The group collectively sniggered at that comment, since he wasn't around to lecture any of them for it. 

"Good one on the Major, eh?" Eggy called with a soft smile as he guided the group back to sit down. 

"Yeah, he's a good egg," Molly agreed, gratefully accepting the beer offered to her. "Speaking of Bosses, who's your casualty replacement Captain? The Rupert not spending time with you all?" 

_"She_ is up on the wire London, keeping up to date on Bossman. Won't tell us nowt, o'course." Brains answered, sounding somewhat bitter. It was unsurprising that they felt their new boss did not cut it. No poor sod ever could when they had Charles to be compared to. 

Molly was dumb suddenly at that comment, reawakened to the reality that so much was going on about which she was not allowed to know. She watched the sun moving across the sky all day with a feeling of chronic sickness and panic, knowing that when it hit the horizon in this time zone, it would mark not only end of a day, but the end of her life as she knew it. Looking around her, she knew only Eggy was aware of the impending timer of doom their Section was facing. His eyes were pitched as he tried to make sure his Section focused on resting and recuperating. The last thing he needed, after all, was panic and despair amongst all ten of them. 

The new recruit, Monk, however, seemed to sense something, too. He was looking around his new Section, evidently seeing the change in them magnified since he had only known them a short while. Molly watched him watch his Corporal and felt him watching her as he pretended not to watch her too. She wanted to smile at him and tell him not to feel uncomfortable about enjoying this free little holiday, but she couldn't find the words. 

Thanks to the western press and their appetite for misery and shock, their little fragile peace only lasted half an hour longer, after which the hotel wifi gave Baz the news she had hoped would stay secret. The others had all been snoozing, now on sun loungers around the pool, or playing beach football.She had found herself chewing her nails in the shade, never one for enjoying much sunbathing, when Baz had wondered up to her in silence, a blank look of shock and resignation on his face that she recognised the moment she saw it. 

The others noticed too, since their banter and side comments towards his football skills went unanswered, as he instead moved like a zombie toward where she was. Looking up at him as he held his iPad in hand, she knew the word was out.

"Is it true?" 

She pressed her lips together to keep from letting out another inhuman sound of grief. Instead, she simply nodded, unable to look him in the eye. One or two of the others, Mansfield and Brains, had gathered, asking copious questions that soon turned into demands for an explanation. She could hear the panic in their voices and knew that they already assumed what it was about, but needed to hear the tragedy to entirely believe it. 

Thankfully, Eggy Kinders stepped forward from his lounger, kind giant that he always had been, and took a shaking heavy breath. "Al Shabaab have released a video, featuring Georgie, but mostly the Boss." 

Instantly, Brains hollered the others over with an urgent call. They came instantly, with not one joke between them; the Army certainly taught one the ability to read tones of voice. Mansfield and Baz were already sitting on her lounger, comforting her simply by their close proximity, while the others gathered around almost as though in a Ops tent briefing. 

"They've said he'll die tonight," Kinders continued, stealing his gaze in a way that reminded her starkly of Charles. "If the Army don't release all Al Shabaab fighters they're holding." 

She stared at the rings on her finger as she listened to their deafening silence, the only sound being a collective sound of quiet disbelief. 

"But the British Army don't negotiate with terrorists—" Mansfield gasped in realisation. Around him, the group burst into cries of 'Shut up, Mansfield!' most likely worrying that she was going to explode or shatter before their eyes. Instead, she finally looked up at them, her dearest friends in the world, and managed to smile. 

"No, it's alright. He's only sayin' the truth, an' what are we, without the truth?" Ignoring the tear that fell, her smile widened as she began thinking back on all the time times Charles had lectured her on belief. "Bossman wo'nt want you to not enjoy this beautiful place just because he had to be a hero," she said, though her voice sounded strange. It was only then that so much effort was going into her keeping her own despair under control, she had forgotten to take a breath. 

"The SF are working hard, Dawesy," Eggy assured, clapping his nearest friend, a very uncharacteristically quiet Fingers, on the back. "They'll get them back." 

"Yeah! Shabaab ain't got nothin' on the Special Forces, Molls!" Brains interjected kindly, trying his best to sound sure. 

Looking around at their faces, she suddenly felt lucky. At least if she were to lose her only love and her good friend in one horrific day, she would have her real family with her to help pick the pieces of her when she hit the floor. After all, holding herself together was becoming far more exhausting than she dare admit. Therefore, she let herself become old Molly, just for a little while, because old Molly had one very easy solution for tragedy. "Drinks then, yeah?" 

 

Those who ordered Elvis and his men to rescue Captain Charles James and Lance-Corporal Georgie Lane evidently had not done their research. If they had, they would have never sent the man whom was best man for one and jilted the other at the alter. As it was, however, as Elvis had touched down in Kenya a few days before when he had opened the intelligence file. He felt physically ill when he had opened it and realised Primary One and Primary Two being non other than the two people that meant everything to him in the world. Add to that that Charles' Molly had been in contact with him, begging him to save her husband as though he did not so desperately want to save his best friend just as much, and he felt almost out of his depth. 

He had known he was in charge of the rescue by the time she had called him, but he had simply been unable to tell her. Not only would it make him break even more advisory regulations than he already was, but it would add a pressure to his shoulders that he did not need. He did feel guilty, leaving her in the dark, but he told himself it was what was best. She would be told of the rescue mission soon enough by her CO anyway. 

The Kenyan Special Forces had received intelligence from an anonymous source indicating that a white man and woman in military medical uniform had been seen in a truck driving south, ten miles from James and Lane's last known position. From there, military drones had flown high above and scoured for sight of them. 

When no sightings had come back, Elvis had begun to feel the uncomfortable chill of panic. They had not expected Al Shabaab to know of Captain James' position and it was a mystery to them as to how they knew of his and not Georgie's. Elvis, knowing Charles so well, had his own theories, of course. He assumed his friend had done the most predictable of Charlie behaviour and played the hero. While admirable, he and Molly for once saw eye to eye on this matter in both feeling frustrated and angry at such behaviour. After all, he seemed to have little regard for his own safety where his Section were concerned. 

This now meant that there was a countdown in place. Elvis worked closely with the Kenyan SF from the moment the video came in, realising that sleep would not be an option.On wires with London and Brize, he soon realised that they had very little to go on. They had a massive surface area to search via the Air Force's drones and less than eighteen hours to do so. As each kilometre was searched with little information and the sun rose, he began pacing. They contacted their contact at Al Jazeera again, pleading for something more. Meanwhile, the foreign secretary's office had been on the wire from Whitehall, along with senior military advisors to parliament and embassy leaders. All demanded that which all in the Army already knew: under no circumstances did the British Army negotiate with terrorists... no matter the cost.

 

In a crumpled heap on a makeshift floor covered in desert moon dust, Charles considered the impending doom that now faced him. 

Days ago, he'd had spirit. He had fought back as tactfully as he could; he had tried to memorise the movements of the truck for an entire twenty four hours when they were first taken hostage. He predicted they were south east of their last known position, but there was no way for him to be sure. 

Now, as he cowered with a course hood over his head, he felt himself slipping, as though attempting to climb a cliff-face as it suddenly turned to mud. 

He had been dragged from his cell in the early hours of the morning, hazed with exhaustion, silently apprehensive as to what they could have in store for him. They had said he would be put to death at sunset, and yet it was barely even sunrise as he was hooded and thrown down in the dust. They shouted at him, surrounded him, rending him completely at the mercy of their torment. He recognised such techniques instantly as very predictable forms of torture: rouse disorientation and fear until reality is forgotten. 

It soon became clear to him that they were doing this simply out of sadistic pleasure rather than because they wanted copious amounts of information from him. As the furious voices didn't stop, he found himself shouting back, attempting to ask them what they wanted from him. 

Suddenly, his heart had stopped dead as they had abruptly pulled a hood over his head, rendering him blind. This could only mean he was being moved... or even worse was coming. 

"Up!" A voice ordered, but he had so few bearings and so many thoughts, he didn't cooperate quick enough. "Up!" the voice screamed, yanking his body up. He was thrust forward and told to stand still. He had so little energy, he could barely stop his legs from shaking under his own weight. His long-standing Army training sent his nerves haywire as there was an unspoken presence behind him. 

"Hands on the wall, soldier scum," came a familiar British voice, setting his nerves on edge as he twitched towards the voice, somewhere just off from his right ear. The British captor from the previous day was back and he was the one that Charles feared most, considering he had almost ordered his men to do... god knows what to Lane. 

"I told you," he tried to reason. His voice was closeted back at him within the hood, sounding too loud for his ears. "I don't know anything about where your men are—" 

The sound of a cocking trigger silenced him and sent the worst kind of chills up his spine and prickling up his scalp. His mouth was chronically dry, but this time with fear rather than his desperate thirst. He clenched his fists, attempting to tell himself not be he frightened, but his heart rate alone told him that was a lie. The noise indicated it was close and a moment later his suspicions were confirmed, as the barrel of a gun was nudged at the back of his head. He jumped at the touch, his nerves completely scattered with his body's rapid decline, gulping as he realised this truly could be the end. 

"I don't call this sunset," he said, knowing the British captor would hear him, proud of the flat, unaffected nature of his voice. "Impatient?" He attempted to stand tall, focusing on his breathing in order to try and distract himself from the quiet and the sound of firearms being loaded somewhere behind him. More than one, he suddenly realised. He was against a wall, blindfolded, surrounded be rifles. 

The penny dropped just as the British voice called out for his men to ready their weapons: he was about to be murdered by firing squad. 

If he hadn't been paralysed with fear, he would have wondered why they were killing him early, or fretted over what that would mean for Lane, when he was gone, but as it was, he was ashamed to say it was much like that day in the ditch when he mistook thunder for enemy fire. 

Despite the fact there were multiple important people in his life, he could only picture one face: a heart-shaped one with a smile and pair of eyes that were so wide and optimistic. 

He so desperately tried to remember her, each tiny detail that once came so easy to him now feeling so very far away, leaving him feeling utterly desolate. How could he keep his vow, how could she be the last thing he saw, when he couldn't even remember how the freckles on her nose fell, or the shade of green in her eyes? Things he had once had memorised. 

He almost wanted to pray, though he never much believed in any god other than Lady Luck (Flook, Chance), as he was terrified more of leaving his family alone in a world filled with men like this than of death itself. Who would give Sam the warmth and softness that Rebecca so often found to hard to show, if he weren't there at the weekends?Who would guide Two Section in his place? 

Who would save Molly from her grief?

Suddenly, he thought of Smurf and the way his death desolated not only Mrs. Smith's life, but also, to a lesser extent, Molly's. Who would save her from the spirals she could get herself into, if not him? She told him once only he could bring her to calm. 

Struck by the memory of long, lost verse he had recited as both Smith brothers' souls, far too young to die, had been put to rest, he began whispering to himself, attempting to claim his last few moments as his own. 

" _Every morning when I wake,"_ he whispered, " _D_ _ear Lord, a little prayer I make."_ Perhaps he hoped it would offer his own soul some solace and dampen the way his body shook with fear. 

"Aim!" A voice ordered. 

His fingers flexed against the stone wall, breathing heavily as he entire body froze.  " _O please do keep Thy lovely eye... on all poor creatures, born to die."_

_"Fire!"_

The order made Charles' weak muscles tremble so, he could feel himself collapsing. The sound of gun shots firing in the confined space triggered a cry of panic and terror from him that he was ashamed he could not keep within. It partially resembled the word 'please'. 

He was rigid from head to toe, bracing for the agony he remembered gunshots to cause, his heart hammering so fast and with such velocity that he was close to hyperventilation. 

However, no pain came. 

He instantly fell to his knees, a strangled noise escaping his lungs as the salty taste of tears met his lips.

Blanks. The bastards had fired blanks. 

As he collapsed, pleading without even first realising it was his voice, he heard them laugh. He then heard the leader who had captured him shout over at him in Arabic, a haunting, snarling declaration: "This is far our families you burned; their terror is now yours."

He did somewhat salute them. After all, they had won. He, a British Army Captain, had proven no match for them. He once thought he stood for good. He thought it was enough to simply _state_ one was good, that simply stating such a thing made it so. He had assumed, because his father had been an Army man, because he had always grown up admiring the British Army, that the orders they gave him he was given must therefore also stand for 'good', because otherwise, obviously, he would not be a part of it. He told himself through his first to fifth tour that he truly did believe in the wars he was fighting; but it took meeting Molly and discovering her outlook on life to make him see things from another perspective. 

He did not serve a defining 'good', but a country filled with good people and a very fortunate, liberal society, which was run by the greedy and the cunning. He served democratic governments, yes, but these democrats were also often warlords, who waged illegal wars in far off territories for oil and power, and he had followed them, willingly blind, all in the name of 'duty' and a uniform.

He wasn't beaten by a clear-cut 'evil', but by men of out-dated views who lacked the education or the means to interpret their holy book or their circumstances for themselves. Menwho had simply been desensitised by the horrors of war because it had been waged by foreigners in their back yard. It was a tale as old as war itself. 

Dylan Thomas had been right; no one was wholly bad or good and perhaps, just perhaps, it had taken being at the hands of terrorist militants for Charles James to truly realise that it, through everything, would always be true. 

With a deep breath, he gritted his teeth, attempting to silence himself from making any sound of weakness, and thought of Molly. His happy place. 

He managed a smile, thinking of how good she was, how much he looked up to her for an example of how good she could be. Perhaps there was one exception to the rule. 

 

Suddenly, there was the clatter of commotion in the distance. He snapped up his head, still masked, as his terror was reawakened. Blindly, he tried to pull at the hood with his tied hands, managing just to untie it and pull it over his head. It was only then that he realised that the commotion was not being made by the captors. His heart hammered as he looked up from his position on the floor, his head snapping from left to right as unknown enemy fire was flying in all directions.Foreign cries of panic were bouncing off the tin roof and stone walls so loud Charles could feel his skull pulsing with it. Crawling on his elbows, Charles felt his training kick in, only his body was far too exhausted to keep up with it. Growling against the pain that spiked through his chest, he dragged himself through the dust towards the light spilling in from the doorway. Through his blurry eyes, he could barely see, so when he heard the cry of what were unmistakably British Army, he was certain he was hallucinating. 

Fighting all desperate instincts to cry for their attention, he dragged himself as hard and fast as he could, ignoring how the course concrete and stone floor tore into the skin of his elbows. Down and out of sight, that was all he had to be until he found cover. Around him, the militants were so outnumbered that they seemed to have completely forgotten about him, too busy being trigger happy with their rifles with very little strategy. 

The moment he reached the doorway, Charles dove behind a set of fuel barrels, only then allowing himself to reach his gaze above the ground. 

Through the gap, he caught sight of the leader that had captured him just before he was shot down, his brains splattering across the concrete. Charles wanted to look away, but he had to see who the shooter was. A moment later, he had to laugh in disbelief, as none of than Elvis stepped into view, his best man and all round bane of his life. Elvis was fighting another militant as more Special Forces moved in. Charles dare not yet allow himself to feel relief, much less hope, as he remained cowered, his cognitive function frustratingly lagging with his hunger and thirst. Suddenly, he was grabbed from behind, a strong forearm coming around his neck in a unforgiving chokehold. Instantly, he clawed at the skin and as the person managed to lift him almost off the floor. He was gasping for breath, his blood coursing with such high levels of adrenaline as he couldn't breathe. His limbs began to tingle and twitch as he was assaulted by vertigo and an uncontrollable need to sleep, his kicks backwards seeming to do very little thanks to his weakness. 

He had now lost count of the amount of times he had come to the acceptance that he was going to die as his vision became blurred. He had fought so hard, but he was so tired. 

Suddenly, heady breath oxygen rushed into his lungs as his face collided with the dusty floor. The burning pain in his jaw and his chest robbed him of the breath he so desperately heaved for as he lay winded, his vision dancing with spots and what looked like static noise. A gunshot in close proximity spiked his adrenaline and roused him into a flinch so violent he sprang up onto his knees. Multiple pairs of hands grabbed him by the arms and picked him up. It took him a long moment to realise, despite the chaos, that these men were Special Forces in British Army uniform. Hurriedly, they cut him free and began hurrying him out into the open. The morning sun was rising and it made Charles's eyes burn and squint, having become unaccustomed to its strength. 

"Lane!" He suddenly realised he had no idea where she was. He didn't recognise his own voice it was so gravelled and soft, even as he tried to shout. "Where's Lane?!" Around him, the masked SF officers ignored him, cramming him into a helicopter and knowing he was too weak to fight them. 

"Elvis!" He tried to yell, seeing his friend out the corner of his eye. "Elvis!" His heart was in his mouth, his whole body shaking against his will. Now he was safe, his only concern was Lane. As they all ignored him, forcing him down on a gurney as an unknown medic asked him typical medical assessment questions he could barely comprehend. "Fucking—No! Elvis! Where's Lane?! What—Answer me!" The more he fought as the helicopter took off, the more they held him down. Somewhere, a sharp, hot pain pinched in his arm and he knew his struggle was useless. He felt so incredibly ashamed because he had failed his soldiers. He had failed everyone. Failed. 

Suddenly, he was drifting as the blue of the Kenyan sky became all he could see. Sky, proper nice, just like Afghan. Suddenly, all his pain had gone and he felt lighter than he had in weeks. His thoughts became transient, shifting, like sand through his fingers. He couldn't grasp a single thread other than one: wonderful, blissful _relief._ He could not tell the ground from the sky, or even remember his own name, but there was a voice in his ear that rendered him almost gleeful, if he had not been nearly unconscious already. 

_This is proper nice, if it weren't so bloody war and all that..._

He considered that this couldn't be heaven. No story of heaven he had ever been told included stories of angels that laughed like the unceremonious cackling he could have sworn he could hear floating over him, even over the whirring of the helicopter blades. 

_Ain't no way I'm lettin' him dip his spoon in my Coco Pops..._

No tale of angels ever told of chestnut hair that tickled his face, or toothy smiles and Cockney rhyming slang... 

_Charlie boy! Get down them apple and pears before I come back up there and we never leave that bedroom again!_

They were not wholly bad or good... but, _fuck,_ she was good; his green eyed lover,wife, friend and comrade. His angel in green. 

_I was always yours._

He was not a religious man, but he gave into feeling so wonderfully taken over, to drift into nothing but oblivion, because he decided it felt like heaven all the same. 


End file.
